Dr. Fauci advises MLB not to play into October

In a recent article at the Los Angeles Times, author Bill Shaikin discussed the recent comments made by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the current director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has also doubled as the face of coronavirus education during the initial months of the pandemic.

In the past few days, Fauci has made his stance clear on how he thinks the MLB should handle the 2020 regular season. More specifically, he shared his thoughts on when he thinks the season/post-season should end.

“If the question is time, I would try to keep it in the core summer months and end it not with the way we play the World Series, until the end of October when it’s cold. I would avoid that.”

Per Shaikin, owners around the league have become more and more concerned with rising coronavirus cases out on the west coast, mainly in the states that have recently taken steps to further open up in past weeks. MLB Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem wrote to players’ union negotiator Bruce Meyer on Monday that new case numbers have “increased the risks associated with commencing spring training in the next few weeks.”

“Even in warm weather, like in Arizona and California, we’re starting to see resurgences as we open up,” Fauci said. “But I think the chances of there being less of an issue in the end of July and all of August and September are much, much better than if you go into October.”

According to projections from this past Monday by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, deaths from the coronavirus are projected to rise steadily in July and August before taking a sharp upward turn through September.

There’s still plenty of time left to work on the logistics of these variables, but why don’t we just get baseball back first and then deal with the other things later? Sound good? Sounds good.