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With No Guidance on Handling an Outbreak, MLB Must Scramble

MLB’s 2020 operations manual has details on how players should board an airplane, how much time a baseball must sit untouched before it can be considered disinfected, and how many physical therapists can enter the restricted area of a ballpark. It addresses rosters, travel, and visas; spitting, high-fiving, and showering; cryotherapy, saunas, and wet rags.

It does not address what happens if a club has so many players test positive for the coronavirus that it can no longer field a reasonably competitive team.

And yet, only four days into the season, this is exactly the question that the league faces: What do you do when one team experiences an outbreak?