SB Nation Reacts: Comfort of a season restart

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Each week, we send 30 polls to plugged in fans from each team. Red Sox fans, sign up HERE to join Reacts.

We are back with another set of polls sent to baseball fans of all teams around the league. As one would imagine, this week’s has to do with the return to baseball, as that is really the only topic on hand for the sport right now as the players and owners still try to hammer out some details for said return. The league has sent over a long preliminary health code, to which the players sent back some notes. The real fight seems to be coming when the two sides negotiate the economics, though, and that will come next week. With all of that being said, we had some questions for you guys regarding a possible return with respect to the safety side of things, as well as your feelings on the commissioner.

Would you feel comfortable as a player returning this year?

This is one of those questions that’s easy to ask and answer from the outside, but as has been pointed out by many different players have different situations. If I am a younger, single player who doesn’t take care of any older people in his family and isn’t really around children and has no underlying health conditions? Sure. Absolutely. I’d feel comfortable. That’s not every player, though. Many have young kids, many take care of their older parents or grandparents, and there are plenty of players with health conditions that could make them more vulnerable to this virus, and none of that even mentions the comfort that comes with being around managers and coaches, who generally skew older. So, basically, I pass.

Would you feel comfortable as a fan?

No. Not at all. I feel like that’s pretty self-explanatory?

Does Rob Manfred care?

So, this is going to be another pedantic answer. Rob Manfred cares about baseball in the sense that Major League Baseball is, at its heart, a group of clubs. He cares about the profits and viability of those clubs and does everything in his power to make short-term profits for the owners of his current clubs. They are the ones who put him in power, and he doesn’t bite the hand that feeds him. But when we talk about lower-case b baseball, the sport, and its long-term future? He might care, but not enough to actually do anything about helping it.

Manfred or Selig?

Oof. Bud Selig is not exactly remembered fondly by baseball fans between the strike and the steroid era along with baseball’s response and even the disaster of the 2002 All-Star Game. But I have to agree with the poll results here. Selig didn’t seem to be as destructive to the future of the sport in the name of short-term profits, largely because I don’t think he was as good at that part of the job.

Do you trust Manfred?

I’d probably trust him to manage my money. As far as trusting him with the future of the sport? I’m not as doomsday-ish as others and think baseball will survive no matter what, albeit maybe at a lesser level of popularity in the worst case, but it will be despite Manfred, not because of him. I certainly don’t trust him to make the best possible decision for anything except the short-term profits of the 30 ownership groups.