As if the 2020 baseball season was not weird enough, we have the daily reminder that normality will be rarer than a power hitting relief pitcher. As “Summer Camp” was not strange enough, we begin to hear about the experiences of the players and staff as they return to work. During the initial reporting process all players and team personnel were subjected to COVID-19 testing. This is not the same experience we would have where we would line up for 8-12 hours at a drive-in location somewhere in the valley where a nurse in a hazmat suit would attempt to tickle your brain through your nose with the world’s largest Q-Tip. I am guessing it is a little better experience for Major League Baseball players.

The good news is that MLB seems to have the teams and players best safety interests in mind. The protocol right now calls for testing approximately every other day. During the first tests on Friday baseball announced that 31 players and 8 team staff members around the league tested positive. Those people will now be quarantined and will not be allowed to return to baseball until they record two negative test results within 24 hours. I think there is also something about spinning around three times, yelling the name of their dogs in pig-Latin and flapping your arms like a bird while running through a sprinkler. That last part may just be for rookies though.

The troubling piece of this is that in the first day 31 players tested positive. That cannot be what either the players or the teams were hoping for to have so many positives before this pre-season even starts. I am sure they were hoping that the social distancing and quarantine routines that have been going on around the country would have meant that they had few or no positives to validate their decision to try and restart baseball.

Today the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros had to cancel their team workouts for the day. No, this wasn’t weather related or a designated travel day to allow players to get to their respective stadiums. Workouts were cancelled because the teams had not received the test results back from the tests administered last Friday. Major League Baseball had explained that they had contracted with a lab for quick turnaround of all test results and that is already problematic. MLB recognized they have an issue and much of the blame was on logistics due to the Independence Day holiday. While that may be accurate, it doesn’t give anyone near the game hope that this season resumption is going to go smoothly.

Each passing day sees more players opting out of playing the 2020 season due to uncertainties and the inability of being able to guarantee a safe work environment. The ages of most of the active MLB players means that most of them either are starting families or already have children and that has to be factored in as well. Mike Trout, arguably the best player in all of baseball, is currently in camp with the Los Angeles Angels but has yet to commit to playing the season given that his wife is pregnant with their first child. No one could blame any of these players for deciding to forego their job this year in order to keep themselves and their families safe.

Every day more players are being identified that they have tested positive or someone in their family has bringing this illness very close to home which has to be very frightening. As players choose safety over the short-term demands of their careers, the integrity of a season seems less and less of a given. There were already people who had discounted that a 60-games would constitute a season and any awards or championships would be looked at differently and not valued the same as a regular season.

You have to give credit to Major League Baseball to even attempt a season this year. Of course, teams are desperately trying to bring in any kind of revenue whatsoever. With no fans in the stadiums there will be no ticket revenue, no parking revenue, no one visiting the various Team Shops and vendors in the stadiums, no one buying hot dogs or beers from ballpark vendors.

But with the number of positive cases that are occurring and the number of players seeing teammates and those on other teams becoming sick the decision to actually go through with this becomes more difficult. Medical professionals still have no idea what the long-term risks are from getting sick with this virus. Those that are lucky enough to recover, will it somehow impact their bodies to the point where they may not be able to play again or could them playing put others at risk?

While everyone is excited at the thoughts that games could be played by the end of the month, there are fewer people acting with confidence that the season will actually start. I count myself as a loyal baseball fan who loves the game. But with each passing day seeing more players and team personnel getting sick and hearing players question whether they should take the risk or not I am left wondering whether we will actually see baseball in 2020 or will this end up being the year that a virus wins the World Series.