Return to normalcy
Things worked out great for the last guy who used that phrase, so I'm stealing it
The Giants are going to have fans at their Spring Training games, and Susan Slusser over at the Chronicle has all the details.
The main points are:
750 to 1,000 fans per game, seated in pods of 2-4, with at least 6 feet between each pod
An app-based screening system before fans enter the stadium
A limited concession menu (no hard liquor! Devastating!)
Face coverings required throughout the park when not enjoying the limited menu
It is, in other words, the standard COVID package that we’ve seen in every place that’s had people in it since April. I don’t know exactly what the screening process will look like, but then again I’ve been filling out COVID forms since May so I can go into my workplace and do work there, so really I do know what the screening process will look like. At work, I have to answer some questions — No, I haven’t had trouble breathing lately. Boy would that be bad! — get my temperature taken, then enter. Every baseball stadium will likely be pretty similar.
The food situation is pure logistics: they can’t buy lots of food for not-lots of people, and they want to limit their menu to items that can be eaten easily (hot dogs, burgers, pretzels), allowing masks to be put back on very quickly. And the masks are a surprise to no one, since we all have lived in the world for the last year and are functioning adults and therefore realize that wearing masks is a good thing to do when there is a lethal, deadly virus out there.
But the real main point is that this is the test run for having fans at Oracle Park this season. The Giants, like every team, would very much like the revenue that comes from having butts in seats this year, and they need to figure out how exactly they plan to achieve said butt seatening. They need to figure out how much food to get and how to handle bathrooms, and fans leaving the stadium — a bigger challenge in San Francisco than in Scottsdale, since in Scottsdale only a few hundred people will be using each exit. If the Giants have 10,000 or so fans at a regular season home game, well, there aren’t that many exits so it’ll be a bit trickier.
Given my harping on the theme last year, this is the point where you may well expect me to complain about the plan and say that baseball is prioritizing money over safety and how dare they and Rob Manfred is a useless simulacrum of a human person. And while that’s all true, well, I’m more at peace with things this year. We have a vaccine that’s getting rolled out, and infections are winding down. Why, only 2,500 Americans died of COVID yesterday. That’s not even a full 9/11! Problem solved, everyone.
But more to the point, we have a much better understanding of what the virus is and how it spreads than we did last year. We know how to put protocols in place to greatly lessen risks. It’s still not a great idea, mind you, but it’s not likely to singlehandedly create the next big COVID wave like that Italian soccer match did in February of last year.
Oh, and Rob Manfred is a useless simulacrum of a human person. Don’t think I’ve mentioned that lately.
So here baseball is, getting some fans into the stadium to watch some baseball games. It’s likely to go well, though if it goes badly it will go extremely badly. But this is what everyone wants to do, so this is what is going to happen. Players wants fans, management wants fans, fans want fans. There’s every incentive to try to make this thing work. At this point, everyone’s tired of fighting anyway. It’s time to see how this goes.