NEWSLETTER
The current COVID rules in New York City that mandate vaccination in the private sector – the ones that lead the admittedly absurd outcome that Kyrie Irving, for example, could attend a Brooklyn Nets game in NYC, but not play in it – will apparently apply to baseball teams, too.
That’s the just-now-breaking word:
Breaking: Unvaccinated Mets and Yankees can’t play at home under current NYC ruleshttps://t.co/xCho2BmV2A
— Deesha (@DeeshaThosar) March 15, 2022
Spoke to a City Hall spokesperson and the Yankees and Mets fall under the same private sector mandate as Kyrie Irving and the Nets. No difference because it's an outdoor sport. Spokesperson cautioned that things could change by Opening Day.
Story posted shortly
— Stefan Bondy (@SBondyNYDN) March 15, 2022
We knew this would be an issue for players going to play the Blue Jays in Toronto (you cannot enter Canada right now to play unless vaccinated), but I hadn’t thought about the New York City mandate because of baseball’s outdoor nature.
If that rule stays in place for well into the season, the impact on the Yankees and Mets could be substantial. We don’t even know which players would be subject to missing games, because we don’t know for sure which players are vaccinated or not.
Not only would certain players not be able to play in those games and contribute to their team, they could be impacted personally:
A point of clarification on the CBA: Teams are allowed but not required to dock pay/service time to players who miss games because they are unvaccinated. It’s up to each team to decide how to handle the situation.
— Stephanie Apstein (@stephapstein) March 15, 2022
I have no idea what will happen, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that one of the first things that came to mind was the Yankees’ free agent pursuit of Anthony Rizzo. We don’t know for sure whether Rizzo has received the vaccine yet – he confirmed that he did not while he was with the Cubs – but if he remains unvaccinated, and if this law is still in place, wouldn’t you be a little wary of signing him if you were the Yankees? You’d have to have a LOT of confidence either that he’ll get vaccinated or that the law will go away by early April.
What a bizarre twist to these final few weeks of the offseason.
#Yankees Aaron Judge was just asked if he’s vaccinated and here is how he responded pic.twitter.com/guXUqm4DHX
— Randy Miller (@RandyJMiller) March 15, 2022
(There’s time for the rules to change by April 7, and given where we are in the pandemic, I think it’s probably reasonable to bet that they will change. The vaccines are safe and effective for almost everyone, and therefore I still think it’s BS that so many people opted not to take them when it could have dramatically improved the pandemic outcomes for everyone. That didn’t happen, however, and we’re so close to this coronavirus becoming endemic that vaccination can become more about protecting yourself than about others. I’ll probably always be bothered by certain behaviors during the last two years, but now that we’re into year three and the situation has changed, I’m less inclined to rail.)
