Are the Athletics Ready to Go Where Taiwan Went This Weekend?
It wasn’t exactly the shot heard ‘round the world, but the home run hit Sunday by Kai-Wen Cheng, made some international ripples.
Cheng, an outfielder playing for the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions in Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), went deep Sunday against the Chinatrust Brothers.
That reminds us of two things. First, Major League Baseball, corporate as it is, has not meshed the majority owner’s business(es) into the team name. Yet.
Second, baseball still exists. The Brothers and the Lions took part in the first professional regular-season game anywhere in the world in 2020. There is a hint of baseball life post COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Taiwan is one of those countries that has been able to fight COVID-19 to something of a standstill with testing and social distancing. The opener had been originally scheduled for March 14, but the situation was deemed sufficiently safe for the league to start up.
And the social distancing was very much in evidence in the game, a 4-1 win in 11 innings for the Uni-Lions, which had a paid crowd of exactly zero. Not a fan was it sight.
What does this mean for the Oakland A’s, specifically, and Major League Baseball in general?
It’s difficult to say with certainty, but when the best weapons against the spread of COVID-19 are in use, some semblance of normalcy can come into play. California in general and the Bay Area specifically was quick to socially isolate even while waiting for the slow-to-arrive testing mechanisms. Theoretically, playing baseball in the Coliseum and across San Francisco Bay in Oracle Park would be possible sooner rather than later.
The problem is that unless the A’s and Giants play 162 home games, baseball in the Bay Area seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. States that were slow to adopt preventative measure like Florida (two teams), Missouri (two teams) and Texas (two teams) wouldn’t seem likely to be able to host anytime in the foreseeable future without the threat of spreading the COVID-19 problem.
So, we’re left with two options we know MLB is looking at – playing 100 or so games in Arizona or the same number of games but with half the teams in Florida and half in Arizona. Most games would be at spring training facilities, off limits to fans and under quarantine – or at least as much quarantine as you can have when two full rosters of teams, the necessary front office and coaching staff, the umpires, the grounds crew, the clubhouse workers and the television crews have to be taken into account.
The Korean pro league is looking to get started soon, too, with South Korea one of the countries having had the best results at dealing with the pandemic. And the league is looking at seeing if it can strike a deal with ESPN for televising games to the U.S. if MLB doesn't get going anytime soon.
One note of worth: While there were no actual fans in the stands, there was a group of robot fans set up, including some that could beat drums.
Are those the drums that are in the Coliseum’s future? Who knows?
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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