Major League Baseball is apparently going to replace “Take me out to the ballgame” with “Watch us cower before empty stands from the safety of your television”.
MLB has put together a draft health-and-safety manual in the wake of the COVID-19 panic, reports Yahoo Sports. Think of it as the cower manual.
In many ways, it is dumber than the draconian measures implemented by power freak state and local government officials.
MLB is a private organization so as far as I am concerned they can do what they want but there should be no problem in calling them out for nonsense, politically correct, over-the-top, asinine “safety” regulations.
What would Babe Ruth think?
He not only played during the period of the 1918 Spanish flu but actually caught the virus.
From War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith:
On May 19, 1918, the first warm day of the year, Ruth took his wife, Helen, to Revere Beach for an afternoon outing. Located just north of the city, it was the nation’s first public beach, a working-class “people’s beach” that featured amusement rides, a boardwalk, and an elaborate pier. Babe spent the day in the sun, eating a picnic basket full of sandwiches and drinking warm beer, swimming on a full stomach, and enjoying his own celebrity by playing a game of baseball in the sand with some locals. He couldn’t have been happier.
Later that night, Ruth complained of a terrible fever. His temperature climbed to 104 degrees, his body ached, he shivered with chills, and his throat throbbed. He had all the symptoms of the flu, a condition that he shared with millions of other Americans in the spring of 1918. Although some people died, most struck with the “spring flu” struggled through the aches and sweats of the fever and recovered.
Ruth might have been among the lucky ones, but the Red Sox physician made matters worse. The day after Ruth’s trip to the beach, he was scheduled to pitch. He showed up at Fenway looking like a ghost, feeling miserable, obviously ill, and in no condition to take the field—but determined to throw nonetheless.
Dr. Oliver Barney “took a look at the big fellow, decided that the trouble was something more than a mere sore throat, and recommended four or five days of complete rest in bed.” Red Sox manager Ed Barrow agreed, and immediately crossed Ruth’s name off the lineup card and sent him home with the doctor, who liberally swabbed his throat with a caustic compound of silver nitrate, probably a 10 percent solution. In fact, he painted Babe’s throat too liberally…
The treatment hit Ruth like a line drive to the throat. He choked and gagged, writhed in pain, and finally collapsed. Immediately, he was rushed to the eye and ear ward of the Massachusetts General Hospital. There a physician packed his inflamed throat in ice. Soon rumors shot through Boston that “the Colossus … worth more than his weight in gold” was on his deathbed.
Two days later, the news from Massachusetts General significantly improved. “Babe’s great vitality and admirable physical condition have started to throw off the aggravated attack of tonsillitis,” noted the Boston Herald and Journal. “The prophecy now is that the big lad will be out of the hospital in four or five days” and would be ready by the end of the month to travel west with his teammates.
Ruth made a full recovery. During May and June, he cracked 11 home runs, more than five entire American League teams would hit that year.
First, it should be stated, and it is remarkable that this has to be stated, COVID-19 is a serious risk mostly to the elderly who already have serious illnesses.
This is not exactly the profile of your average major league baseball player–or the average stadium attending fan.
The 1918 flu was much more dangerous to ballplayers and fans than COVID-19, but the players played on without a cower manual and the fans cheered them on from the stands.
Sadly, major league sports have been regular promoters of government propaganda.
This regulation from the cower manual should make that clear:
Players will be required to stay 6 feet apart during the playing of the national anthem.
Note well: They are still going to play the damn national anthem, a propaganda piece in itself,—while they stand six feet apart.
But that is only the beginning. They apparently will take steroid-like juiced-up absurd measures to fall in line with government instigated fear in addition to banning fans at the game.
MLB simply belongs to the greater herd group crowd or, worse, full well knows they are promoting propaganda.
There is plenty of commentary from medical scientists at top universities who have spoken out against the measures ordered by government officials, including top scientists at Stanford University and the University of Pittsburgh. They have made clear they see no benefit from the lockdowns and other measures placed on the general public to “battle” COVID-19.
The following regulations, for the players, are for individuals so far from a risk category that it is laughable. Some even don’t make sense for a 90-year old man with one leg.
According to the manual, spitting would be prohibited (including of sunflower seed shells).
This one is certainly unhealthy: Batting practice pitchers are to wear masks. And this, managers and coaches must wear masks while in the dugouts. There are plenty of scientists who will tell you wearing a mask is counterproductive. It reintroduces the carbon dioxide you produce back into your system. How is that healthy? Please tell us MLB.
Players may not touch their faces to give signs, says the cower manual.
Fielders are ”encouraged to retreat several steps away from the baserunner” between pitches. First and third base coaches are not to approach baserunners or umpires, and players should not socialize with opponents.
Players and other team personnel not participating in the game should sit in the stands, separated by at least 6 feet.
The pregame ritual of the exchange of lineup cards would be prohibited.
Each member of a traveling party of a visiting team — including players — must wear personal protective equipment while on buses and flights. Restaurants are off limits on the road, including the ones in hotels, as are hotel fitness centers.
A ball will be thrown away after it is touched by multiple players. (Hey, maybe in the middle of a play–you can’t be too safe. Will double plays be banned if they require two throws of the ball?)
Players will also be discouraged from throwing the ball around the infield between plays.
Perhaps MLB can tweak, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” this way:
Keep me away from the ball game,
Keep me away from the empty stands
Make the players social distance
So that Dr. Fauci and government power freaks can cheer at the lack of resistance
I don’t care if I ever get back,
I won’t be root, root, root, rooting for the home cowering team,
I am more fearless than that
I’d rather play ball with my cat
Reprinted with permission from Target Liberty.
