It recently became public knowledge a letter signed by all the mayors of the cities in Maricopa County, Arizona, what is where Cactus League takes place at MLB Spring Training, asking the league to delay the start of the preseason for risk to infections by Covid-19. However, MLB may have pressured the same Arizona authorities to do so with a grim purpose in the background.
According to information from Alex Coffey of The Athletic, a representative of Major League Baseball held a virtual meeting on January 13 with the authorities of the Cactus League, including its president Bridget Binsbacher and the mayors of the cities of Mesa, Phoenix , Scottsdale, among others, where they will be pressured to write this letter to MLB and thus delay the start of Spring Training and the regular season.
Coffey mentions that the Major League Baseball Players Union (MLBPA) believes that it is a ruse of the owners and the commissioner to reduce the number of games in the regular season and thus, reduce the pay of the players towards the 2021 campaign as well how it happened in 2020.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan would have mentioned after the letter was released that the decision of the Cactus League and its authorities does not make sense because in the state of Arizona NHL and NBA games are being played with public in stadiums with closed domes and not outdoors, with the same politicians who call for the cessation of MLB’s Spring Training seeking that these events take place despite Covid-19, implying that it is MLB who is pressing them.
However, despite all this mess, it is very likely that the MLB season along with Spring Training will end according to the pre-established dates, after the MLBPA issued a statement that the plans remain in place.
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