Although it hasn't yet been cleared by federal officials, the province of Ontario and the city of Toronto have both given their blessings for the Toronto Blue Jays to play games at home in the shortened 2020 baseball season that is about to begin.
All sorts of onerous protocols have been instituted for the team, basically resticting it to sports fields, hotels and airports, with strict physical distancing and masks in the "clubhouse". But it does mean that the Jays, and the visiting teams from all over disease-ridden America, will be criss-crossing the US-Canadian border many times during the short season, which, given that there won't even be a crowd cheering for the team in the Rogers Centre, seems like an awful lot of work for very little benefit to me. (The NHL's plans for resumption of the 2020 season are slightly different in that all 24 teams will be cloistered in two centres - Toronto and Edmonton, both notably NOT in the USA - to avoid the need for international travel).
Toronto Mayor John Tory said that he didn't want the Blue Jays to be the only MLB team not to be able to play in its home stadium, but surely the main advantage of a home stadium is the crowd, not just the abstract comfort of a known facility.
In order to make this happen, and for the baseball team not to be subject to the usual 14-day quarantine period that would normally apply to anyone crossing the border into Canada, the Immigration Minister needs to issue a "national interest" exemption for the league's players and staff members, as it did for their pre-season training schedule. That exemption is still pending (although if it was issued for spring training, I can't see why it would be withheld for the main season, apart from the fact that the US pandemic outbreak has become a whole lot worse in recent weeks...)
So, baseball games, and more specifically the Toronto Blue Jays, are in the "national interest"? Well, I guess so, but I'm sure that this is not the kind of thing the designation was originally designed for. It seems likely that an exemption will in fact be issued in time for the season opener next week, but, to employ a commonplace baseball metaphor, it's by no means a slam dunk.
UPDATE
Well, credit where credit is due, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marco Mendocino, ruled against the Toronto Blue Jays playing at home for the 2020 season. He decided that the Blue Jays are neither immigrants, refugees or citizens, and that the circumstances of a full season of baseball play, and the current virus situation in America, are much different from a bit of spring training for a few weeks, and that the possible harm to the health and safety of Canadians does not justify a National Interest Exemption.
The Jays, the lone Canadian team in the MLB, will probably play their games in their training facility in Dunedin, Florida. Yes, THAT Florida, which is currently suffering one of the world's worst coronavirus outbreaks. The federal government held out the possibility that home games may move back to Toronto if the virus situation improves, but don't hold your breath.
No comments:
Post a Comment