Baseball Unites as One During Current Coronavirus Outbreak
This afternoon, MLB announced that all thirty teams in baseball were going to collectively contribute to a COVID-19 fund. In the announcement, the league stated that every team would be contributing $1 million dollars a piece to the fund.
Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the news on Twitter via the tweet below.
NEWS: Each of the 30 Major League Baseball teams will commit $1 million to ballpark employees who would not have been paid due to the coronavirus crisis causing the postponement of the baseball season until at least mid-May. Story filed to ESPN and coming soon.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 17, 2020
The primary goal of setting up the funding is to assist stadium workers who have been put out of work due to the current Coronavirus outbreak. With this fund it will provide assurance that those employees will be compensated for the games missed.
MLB as a Community
One of the biggest takeaways from this news is the idea of the type of community that baseball has established. In the big picture, baseball has done a very good job of always looking out for its players and employees. In addition, when there are times of crisis, baseball always finds a way to create unity and promote togetherness.
As a result, with this fund those impacted stadium workers will have their basic cost of living needs met in large part. Furthermore, it would not be surprising to see some teams contribute even more to the fund itself. Additionally, MLB owners have already started to create their own individual programs in various organizations across the league.
Seattle Mariners
Ryan Divish, Seattle Mariners beat writer with The Seattle Times, reported the news on Twitter.
Mariners have created a fund to support their event staff employees. pic.twitter.com/zQHHyvHms3
— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) March 17, 2020
As time moves forward, it would not be a surprise to see other teams follow what the Mariners are doing. Granted, more details still need to be released about the Mariners fund being established, but it’s overall goal remains the same as the league wide one. That is helping stadium workers during the current Coronavirus crisis.
Final Thoughts
In the end, during times of crisis coming together as one is extremely important. As such, the actions that MLB has taken so far have been very impressive. Baseball continues to lead by example and find initiatives that show how much of a community the entire sport is. As time moves forward, more of these announcements will likely happen.
