San Diego Padres: Having the discussion whether the season should be played

With several teams having delayed workouts and test results, let’s face a hard truth of the San Diego Padres season potentially being canceled.

When the league implemented a 60-game season in June, it was one of the happiest days for me personally. The San Diego Padres had been in a holding pattern since mid-March, waiting to see what would come from the negotiations between MLB owners and the Player’s Association.

Opening Day is always one of the best days of the year, but we just have to hope we get there now. As teams began organized workouts and intrasquad games, several clubs have experienced delayed or canceled workouts in addition to players testing positive for the coronavirus.

For the Padres, Tommy Pham tested positive last week, and the two-week absence only delays his highly-anticipated debut as the team’s everyday left fielder.

Several players across the league have already opted out for the 2020 season, putting their health – and therefore their family’s health – first before baseball. I don’t blame anyone who elects this route, but I suppose there should be a much larger discussion about whether the season should go on.

Admittedly, I wanted baseball back so much that I was a bit naive about the logistics of a 60-game schedule amid a pandemic. Baseball is my favorite sport, and it’s obviously a big reason why I chose to write about it on a daily basis. And it appears that Major League Baseball is willing to accept whatever happens to squeeze in a shortened schedule.

“I think they greatly underestimate the power of inertia when it comes to decisions in Major League Baseball,” said Craig Calcaterra, via The Ben and Woods Show. “They’re gonna go from we can’t play unless we have testing turned around in 24 hours and players properly isolated…I think they’re gonna put their heads down, power through, and constantly move the goalposts on what is acceptable while trying to convince people that we (MLB) anticipated this kind of thing all along.”

If that is the mentality of Major League Baseball – expanding the boundaries of what is considered acceptable – it seems foolish to put baseball before the player’s health, assuming testing doesn’t improve.