UPDATED: The Miami Marlins' COVID-19 Outbreak Showcases Baseball's - And America's - Misplaced Priorities

UPDATE: We now know the cause of the Covid outbreak on the Marlins: they left their hotel in Atlanta to go to a strip club, reported by Bob Nightengale of The Athletic and Tweeted by Andrew Fillipponi of 937 The Fan in Pittsburgh.

On Sunday, reports came out that members of Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins had contracted the coronavirus. Four Marlins had tested positive, and on Monday morning it was reported by ESPN's Jesse Rogers and Jeff Passan that ten more members of the team had tested positive: eight players and two coaches. Their game, scheduled for Monday night in Baltimore, was cancelled, as was the Philadelphia Phillies' game against the New York Yankees. Players, coaches, and owners alike were reported to have had emergency meetings about what to do. At the time of writing on Tuesday afternoon, the Marlins now have nineteen positive cases. The Phillies' test results have not yielded any positive cases yet, however their game tonight is also cancelled and since the incubation period for the virus is fourteen days, players who test negative now could still be carrying the virus and spreading it.

Regardless, the show went on in other parks around the league, including other members of the NL and AL East, who have come into contact with both the Braves, Marlins, Phillies, and Yankees.

While the return of sports, both domestic and abroad, has been a welcome distraction from the current situation in the United States, the issue is that the actions on the part of both the Marlins and Major League Baseball show that baseball not only failed to implement a proper return to play protocol, but also that they are placing their priorities on the exact wrong thing, and that is revenue and profit over the well being of their players and coaches.

While leagues in other countries have returned to relative normalcy - as have those countries, for that matter - sports in the United States and Canada need to be played in 'bubbles' - which is to say that only personnel required to conduct the games are allowed to be in contact with each other, and nobody else. Major League Soccer and the NBA have both set up in Florida amidst skyrocketing case numbers, while the National Hockey League is working out of Toronto and Edmonton to conduct its playoff tournament. The NFL and NCAA have yet to release plans, although many collegiate sports have altered their schedules and the cancellation of the college football season is not unlikely. The traveling Formula 1 season has conducted thousands of tests with staggeringly few cases as they have traveled from Austria to Hungary to England, with countries such as Italy and Russia left on the calendar.

Baseball, however, is operating at teams' home parks and with no personal restrictions on players and team personnel, albeit playing a modified schedule where the corresponding divisions in each league only play each other to reduce travel. Considering that eleven of the league's teams are in the the four states with the highest infection rates (California, Texas, New York, and Florida), the lack of safety precautions is extremely concerning.

As a point of reference, the Marlins currently have more active cases than all of Taiwan, where fans are able to be in attendance at professional baseball games, as shown in this tweet. Players have been having conversations with teammates and members of other teams as to whether they should play on a given day, and the season is not yet even a week old.

So, with all the uncertainty and all the potential safety issues, why did the MLB not play in a bubble; and, failing that, why have they not suspended the season? The answer is obvious: the money.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement, negotiated between the Players Association and the team owners, expires after the 2021 season, and baseball has perhaps the most contentious rapport between labor and ownership of any major professional sport. Player strikes severely disrupted the 1981 and 1994 seasons - the latter being attributed as the final nail in the coffin of the old Montreal Expos, now the Washington Nationals - and a lockout was narrowly missed before the 2017 season. Neither side can afford to lose a year of revenue, and even negotiating for this abbreviated season in 2020 was fraught with difficulty. As such, playing ball, even in this climate was imperative, both for the owners and players' pockets, but to avoid the potential of losing two consecutive seasons of play, in a time when interest in baseball is sharply decreasing. Despite the rash of positive cases, commissioner Rob Manfred said he did not consider the issue in the "disaster zone", although he had stated before the season that he would suspend play if necessary.

By the way, this is not to place all of the blame on one side. Players or owners could have insisted on only playing in a bubble, which would have been sensible for either side.

With that said, the lack of a bubble, or even travel restrictions on team personnel, is a dangerous idea and is very much in line with the American mindset during this pandemic.

As other countries have made significant progress towards life after Covid, like Cuba, Vietnam, and New Zealand, the United States is drowning amidst seeming government carelessness and a populace that is intensely divided on following basic safety precautions such as wearing masks. The U.S. has more cases than the next two countries combined, and yet we're playing baseball? It stinks of recklessness and a commitment to making money as opposed to protecting the labor that makes that money in the first place. Millions of Americans are at risk of being evicted and nobody will help them.

And while it is infuriating and disheartening, it is not unexpected. This is a country dedicated to talking out of both sides of its mouth, on performative shows of 'solidarity' even from members of its own government, who actually have the power to combat the issue. The spice can't not flow, to paraphrase Frank Herbert. To a country so determined on providing for its armed forces, the same ones abducting protesters in Portland and Seattle, even half measures seem a step too far when it comes to protecting its own citizens during this pandemic.

So, whether or not it's the right thing to do, it looks like we're playing ball this summer.