A five-day quarantine before reporting to spring training. Shorter spring training games. No indoor dining. With few exceptions, no leaving the hotel or meeting anyone outside the traveling party while on the road. Mandatory wearable contact-tracing devices. Discipline for violations, including for failure to wear a mask correctly, or at all, while at the stadium.
These are among the many new wrinkles in the 108-page operations manual governing the 2021 Major League Baseball season. After the players’ union rejected a recent effort by the league to push back the start of the season and shave off eight games in response to the continuing threat from the coronavirus, a traditional 162-game schedule, starting on April 1 with normal travel, will be used.
With pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training in Arizona and Florida in just over a week, the union and MLB agreed late Monday on new health and safety protocols that build on the regulations and the lessons learned from last season.