Four weeks have passed since Major League Baseball delayed the start of the 2020 regular season due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and it has been two weeks since what would have been Opening Day.
If and when the season will begin remains unclear. MLB reportedly is considering staging Opening Day for all 30 teams in Arizona, with play potentially beginning as soon as May. MLB is also said to be considering division realignment utilizing the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues.
The need and willingness to adapt in order to hold a season is present, but that MLB is in this position caught Ross Stripling by surprise. “I don’t think we really thought it would come to this,” he said in a recent interview with DodgerBlue.com.
“The few days before baseball was really put on hiatus, there was a lot of talk around the NBA, where LeBron said he wouldn’t play in front of zero fans. I was actually watching the Mavericks game where Marc Cuban found out basketball was going to get suspended. You saw that big reaction he had that went viral on social media.
“I was watching with Kyle Farmer and he asked if I thought that would happen in baseball and I said, ‘I don’t think so, man. I think maybe play in front of no fans but there’s no way we put baseball on hold.’
“Forty-eight hours later I woke up thinking I had four innings against the Cubs, and by the end of that day baseball was suspended. It happened really fast. Every day it seemed to get a little more serious and once you have mega enterprises like the NBA and March Madness shutting their doors, you kind of had the feeling we were going to follow suit.”
While he was surprised MLB ultimately was forced to take action, Stripling did have the coronavirus on his radar for quite some time due to his work as a licensed stockbroker. “I definitely follow the Chinese market and it was starting to really hit their stock market and economy in general,” he said.
“Which obviously affects us; they’re one of the biggest economies in the world. So that was when it was brought to my attention and that was before Spring Training. And then when we got to Spring Training, there were whispers about it and kind of hearing cases growing in China and shutting down their economy and all that.
“People were wondering if it was coming over this way. We had our first couple cases in the U.S. and that cruise ship that got stuck, and within a few days (of opening camp) we had our main team doctor and Stan Kasten come into the locker room to run down what the deal is with the coronavirus.
“At that point we weren’t even asking questions like would we play in front of zero fans or anything like that. It was kind of just wash your hands, this is a version of the flu kind of stuff. Every day it just seemed to get more and more serious. Now obviously we are where we are.”
With MLB putting all group workouts on hold and the Dodgers closing their Camelback Ranch facility, Stripling and his wife Shelby returned to their home in Houston. He has continued with some throwing and individual workouts and estimated pitchers would need two or three weeks to build back up for a season.
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