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We’re one week out. Allegedly.
In seven days, the San Francisco Giants are scheduled to start the season by visiting the Los Angeles Dodgers for a July 23 Opening Day ESPN doubleheader. The New York Yankees and Washington Nationals play the first game, just to whet your appetite for high quality baseball before you watch the Dodgers.
If you’ve been apprehensive about whether or not the four months late, 60-game MLB season should happen, you’re forgiven. If you’ve been dubious as to whether it can even happen, you’re forgiven.
If you’re still apprehensive and dubious? Well, yeah. Grab a number and get it line, pal.
It appears that baseball is moving full steam ahead, doubts and fears and worries be damned. But there is a potential problem, and it’s the same problem we’ve had every day for the last few months: the coronavirus.
If you’re living in a San Francisco bubble, let me send you the report from sunny Los Angeles: cases are rising rapidly.
#COVID19 update (7/14/20) @lapublichealth confirms the highest number of new cases & hospitalizations reported in a day with 4,244 new cases, 73 new deaths and 2,103 people currently hospitalized.
— Los Angeles County (@CountyofLA) July 14, 2020
Total confirmed cases in LA County= 140,307
Total deaths= 3,894
(1/3) pic.twitter.com/jm0v2izfAo
So how does this involve San Francisco, other than giving everyone in NorCal a smug sense of completely-earned superiority? Because the schedule makers cursed the Giants with seven games at Dodger Stadium, including the first four of the season.
According to the Washington Post, the Dodgers are one of two teams currently dealing with municipal protocols that could complicate the whole concept of playing home baseball games.
An MLB spokesman confirmed the Nationals are one of two teams, along with the Los Angeles Dodgers, dealing with municipal quarantine rules that could present additional challenges during the season. The league is helping to resolve those issues, but it is unclear whether the Dodgers are also exploring alternate sites.
But according to a few reports, the Dodgers are not exploring alternate sites to host their games.
There are also strong quarantine rules in place in Los Angeles, but for now I hear the #Dodgers are not looking at alternative sites to play home games.
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) July 16, 2020
However, the county is instituting stricter quarantine rules, which could impact the Dodgers and any teams who come to town. Which the Giants do twice.
For now, it seems the Giants will still enter Dodger Stadium on July 23. But the looming feeling that the other shoe will drop is looming even larger now.