These are the numbers that scare the hell out of the NFL today.
3-11-17.
Those are the numbers of Miami Marlin baseball players who tested positive for Coronavirus over just two days. Going from 3. To 11. To 17. The team was shut down and the schedules of four other baseball teams altered as a result.
The Marlins opened the season in Philadelphia for 3 games. Neither team would take the field again over the next 10 days. Home plate umpire Tim Timmons (center) explains things to Marlins manager Don Mattingly (left) and Phillies manager Joe Girardi with the other umpires looking on prior to last Friday’s game in Philadelphia. Photo by Associated Press / Fulton Sun.
3-11-17 – over two days. It’s a reminder of just what we’re dealing with here. That is an alarming acceleration of infections. Baseball players have freedom of movement. On the field there are protocols. Off the field is another matter. The players are more or less on the honor system to keep themselves healthy. The future of this season is in the balance.
And that’s where the NFL comes in. They’re paying attention. Football players face even more risk. There are more players and it’s a more physical sport.
3-11-17. It’s not the end of sports. It is a warning.
Watch Bill Pucko on The Press Box, every weekend on FOX Rochester.
Bill Pucko has spent over three decades as a broadcast journalist working in television, radio and print. He was the featured sportscaster on Rochester’s YYN and WHEC-TV, awarded the Rochester Press and Radio Club’s Sportscaster of the Year Award three times and inducted onto the Frontier Field Walk of Fame in 2006.
Bill is a co-founder of Classy Wolf Media, a television and video production company currently syndicating two weekly sports programs, The High School Sports Beat and The Press Box, on WHAM-TV and FOX Rochester.
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