MLB Players' "Personal Choices" For Vaccine Have Big Consequences
In today's issue, we discuss the star MLB players who have not gotten the COVID vaccine this season and how their choices have impacted their respective teams.
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . The New York Yankees traded for outfielder Andrew Benintendi on July 28, one of the Kansas City Royals’ 10 unvaccinated players that were not permitted to enter Canada for the Royals-Blue Jays series from July 14-17. Though the Yankees have a three-game series in Toronto with the rival Jays from Sept. 26-28, Benintendi was not required to be vaccinated for the trade to go through. He said at the time of the trade that he was “open-minded” about getting the COVID vaccine, but as of Aug. 7, he still had not received the vaccine or confirmed one way or the other whether he would get vaccinated.
Kansas City ultimately lost three out of four games to Toronto in that undermanned July series.
Leading Off
MLB Players Claim Refusing Vaccine Is A “Personal Choice”: It Isn’t
By Russ Walsh
As a second grader in 1955, I lined up with all my other classmates in the school multi-purpose room and received a shot from what looked for all the world like one of Hopalong Cassidy’s six shooters. It was the polio vaccine, the miracle drug, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk and other scientists. I can still remember the relief on my mother’s face when she read about the vaccine and signed the permission slip allowing me to receive my shot. One of my friends had been stricken with polio the year before; we had all seen the iron lungs and the leg braces. We were grateful for the vaccine. Because so many people received the vaccine, polio was virtually wiped out in about 20 years.
You’ll forgive me then if I have little tolerance for baseball players who tell me their refusal to get the COVID vaccine is a “personal choice.” As individuals living in a free society, we have many personal choices. But because we live in a free society, we also have many personal responsibilities. Responsibilities to that society, responsibilities to the people we work with, and responsibilities to our families and friends.
We all agree to wear seatbelts. We all agree not to smoke in public places. We all agree to (reluctantly, perhaps) pay taxes. It is all part of being a contributing member of society. Getting a vaccine that has been proven both safe and effective to guard against both getting COVID and spreading it to others is a civic responsibility, a duty to your team, and protection for your friends and family.
In 1909, at the New York Highlanders’ (later Yankees) spring training facility in Georgia, first baseman Hal Chase was hospitalized with smallpox. The rest of the team took a train to Richmond, Va., to play a preseason exhibition game, but first all the players had to undergo a medical examination to insure they were not infected and were not at risk of spreading the disease to others. The players dutifully underwent the examination. Doctors could tell if the smallpox vaccine had “taken” if it left a small circular scar on the arm. Those who did not have the scar were vaccinated again. No one objected. The team was declared medically safe, and the game and season went on. Chase recovered and played in 118 games for the Highlanders that year.
Fast forward 100 years, and suddenly following the best medical and scientific advice for the good of all is a “personal choice.” J.T. Realmuto of the Philadelphia Phillies refused the vaccine and had to miss two games in Toronto on July 12 and 13 because Canada required people coming into the country to be vaccinated.
“I’m not going to let Canada tell me what to do and not do to my body for a little bit of money,” Realmuto said.
Apparently, Realmuto was unaware that the United States requires all his teammates who are not American citizens to be vaccinated before they can come to this country and play. He also seemed clueless that most of the people who pay to see him play would not find an estimated $260,000 in lost pay “a little bit of money.” And then there is the team issue, of course. Realmuto’s teammates, fighting for a playoff spot, were forced to play two games without the best catcher in baseball. They lost both.
Another playoff contending team, the St. Louis Cardinals, had to play two games in Toronto on July 26 and 27 without two of the best players on the planet, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado.
“It’s just a personal choice, and I’m not trying to make a political stand here or be a spokesperson for this and that,” Arenado said. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for me and my family, and I mean no harm.”
Just because you mean no harm does not mean you do no harm. His failure to vaccinate certainly harmed his team, as they lost one of the two games they played without him in Toronto. More importantly, his failure to get vaccinated potentially harmed the family he was so interested in protecting and, by extension, all our families.
For his part, Goldschmidt said he talked to “many doctors and medical professionals” before making his decision. One must wonder what medical professionals he talked to, since the profession is near unanimous in declaring the vaccine safe, effective, and necessary to control the spread of the disease. Whether Arenado and Goldschmidt mean to be “political” or not, their decision is political. They are saying to people who may consider them role models that individual choice, no matter how ill-informed, is more important than what is good for society.
The Kansas City Royals recently traveled to Canada without their 10 unvaccinated players. One of them was their longtime star Whit Merrifield. He managed to make himself the poster boy for the selfish, self-serving athlete with his statement -- the Royals are near the bottom of the American League Central standings. Merrifield said that if he was traded to a contender, he would consider getting the jab, “but as we sit right now, I’m comfortable with my decision.” For Merrifield, there is no team in I.
As I write this article, news of a polio outbreak in Rockland and Orange counties in New York is being reported. The widespread vaccination of children wiped out polio by 1979. In this country nearly all children are required to be vaccinated against polio before entering school. Compliance throughout the country is over 90 percent, but Rockland and Orange counties are hotbeds of vaccine resistance, where the percentage of those vaccinated is below 65 percent. For folks in these two counties, the consequences of a failure to get vaccinated are getting very real. And of course, their “personal choice” has now infected the water in neighboring New York City.
Over the last two years, if more people had gotten the COVID vaccinations and boosters in a timelier manner, the disease would have been better controlled. A national pandemic is no time for “personal choices.” The selfish actions of some baseball players may seem like small potatoes in the overall response to the pandemic, but when prominent people fail to meet their responsibilities to society, they make it easier for others to excuse their own narrow minded selfishness.
Russ Walsh is a retired teacher, diehard Phillies fan, and student of the history of baseball with a special interest in the odd, quirky, and once in a lifetime events that happen on the baseball field. He writes for both the SABR BioProject and the SABR Games Project and maintains his own blog The Faith of a Phillies Fan. You can reach Russ on Twitter @faithofaphilli1
One of the best and most important articles ever published by Here's The Pitch. Thank you, Russ Walsh, for writing it.