Category: MLB

MLB players, front office personnel, concession workers, and others involved with the league will participate in a nationwide COVID-19 study.

Report: MLB players, other employees to participate in COVID-19 study — HardballTalk | NBC Sports

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that players, front office personnel, concession workers, and others will take part in a study involving 10,000 people. They will have their blood drawn via pinprick. The blood will then be studied for the presence of two antibodies: IgM and IgG. The Athletic’s Molly Knight says that 27 of 30 teams will have employees of some stripe being tested.

As Passan notes, IgM is produced early among those who have COVID-19. IgG is produced later on. The reason why the study is so expansive and including so many people of different backgrounds is not only to increase the sample size, but also to allow researchers to eliminate variables.

Major League Baseball apparently mobilized quickly to join in the study. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said, “I’ve reached out to others, but MLB moved by far the fastest. They’ve been enormously cooperative and flexible. We’re trying to set up a scientific study that would normally take years to set up, and it’s going to be a matter of weeks.”

It is worth noting that MLB’s participation in this study isn’t motivated by the league’s urgency to start a season in some fashion. The data collected will have identifying information removed. Additionally, MLB did not pay to join the study. It appears that MLB mobilized selflessly, so kudos to all involved for that.

Hopefully, MLB’s reach will help scientists better understand the disease and eventually develop a vaccine for it.

A poll from Seton Hall University found 72 percent of respondents wouldn’t attend sporting events until a COVID-19 vaccine is devleoped.

Poll says 72 percent of Americans would not attend games until coronavirus vaccine developed — HardballTalk | NBC Sports

A poll conducted by The Sharkey Institute at Seton Hall University found that 72 percent of respondents would not attend sports games until a cure for coronavirus (COVID-19) is developed. 12 percent would attend if social distancing practices were instituted and 13 said they would attend, feeling as safe as they had prior to the pandemic.

The sample size was 762 respondents, 348 of which responded from a landline phone and 414 responded via cell phone.

76 percent of respondents felt the leagues acted at the right time to shut down operations and an additional 16 percent felt that the leagues didn’t act quickly enough. Also of interest, 76 percent of fans said they would have the same interest in sports even if they are played without fans.

This poll is of interest, of course, to those running national sports leagues, including Major League Baseball. In recent days, we have learned that MLB was considering having an abbreviated schedule play out entirely in Arizona. Other ideas floated have included running the schedule deep into the fall, playing in largely warm-weather areas, and making use of frequent doubleheaders. Sports leagues and their associated business interests are losing money every day due to the pandemic, so it is understandable why many are willing to get creative to put on a show.