Bubbles.
If Trump wins a second term, he should try this approach next year with the Olympics when Japan inevitably ends up agonizing over whether to hold them as scheduled. “We can hold them in America!” he could say. “We’ve already culled our weak and elderly and practically everyone else has been infected and recovered. It’s the safest place on earth.” I sense the media would react to the idea of rewarding America for its massive pandemic failure in that scenario more harshly than it will this similar proposal from Governor Death Toll. I’m about 50/50 on whether this is an earnest idea or just a way for Cuomo to continue his feud with Ron DeSantis by suggesting that Miami’s virus-ridden team would be safer playing in New York now. “New York state could host any Major League Baseball game that any teams want to play and they could play those games in our stadiums,” the governor said in a briefing on Tuesday. “New York state has one of the lowest infection rates in the United States. New York state has a full Department of Health protocol system in place. We have a testing system in place. I offer to Major League Baseball, if you’re having problems playing in other states, come play here.”… Cuomo said that guaranteeing the continuation of the baseball season would be “good for the economy, I think it would be good for the psyche, I think it would be good for the nation’s soul.”… “We could set up a protocol where you get on a private plane in a high risk state, you land in New York, you are transported directly from a plane to a quarantine hotel,” Cuomo said. “You are in the quarantine hotel and tested in the quarantine hotel. If you are negative, you play ball.” There are at least 15 minor-league stadiums in New York in addition to the home fields of the Mets and Yankees, notes Politico. The Toronto Blue Jays have already commandeered one in Buffalo, as they’re barred from playing at home this year. (Canada doesn’t want to bring any disease-infested Americans north of the border.) The lesson of the Miami Marlins’ fiasco does appear to be that you need a “bubble” around your league in order to have any chance of playing an entire season, and the smaller the bubble, the better. The NBA’s shrunk it down to a single complex in Orlando. Cuomo’s offering a bubble the size of his state, which really has managed to keep new infections at a rock-bottom level. For now. I wonder if Trump might end up backing Cuomo on this idea. He celebrated the resumption of baseball season a few days ago by playing catch with Mariano Rivera at the White House.
