By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Major League Baseball (MLB) training camps reopen on Wednesday, marking a critical step toward bringing back America’s pastime amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
MLB and its players’ association agreed to a shortened 60-game 2020 campaign last week, with each team’s first game on July 23 or July 24, after weeks of negotiations cast doubt on whether the season would happen at all.
Wednesday marks the league’s “mandatory reporting date,” though players and staff must go through testing prior to entering team facilities, while the first workouts and “full baseball activities” begin on Friday.
Dubbed “Summer Camp,” the workouts pick up where spring training left off in March, when the COVID-19 outbreak put the season on indefinite hold and players were allowed to leave training sites in Arizona and Florida.
Some of those facilities were closed earlier this month, including the Philadelphia Phillies’ Clearwater, Florida, centre, after players and staff tested positive for the new coronavirus.
The New York Mets and New York Yankees said they had worked with the governor’s office to bring players from Florida to train in their Big Apple homes, as new cases surged in several states and New York moved to impose quarantines on some visitors.
In contrast, Minor League Baseball said Tuesday that it was cancelling its season for the first time in more than a century.
(Reporting By Amy Tennery; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
