With million-dollar salaries and the apparent lives of kings, professional athletes seem to have it all, but on the horizon is something that no one wants.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome is beginning to affect the lives of our northern neighbors, and if it isn’t careful, the professional sporting world could be a catalyst for a truly worldwide epidemic. With cases reported in more than 20 nations, the spread of SARS has become a focal point for many professional institutions.
Major League Baseball is at the forefront of this discussion in the United States. With 16 reported deaths in Toronto, the league has decided on precautions for those teams traveling to Canada. The league has issued guidelines that inform players not to sign autographs, visit hospitals, or come into any close contact with the general population.
The guidelines effectively take away the ability of ball players to be ambassadors for the game and to use their fame for a worthy cause. These guidelines ruin what America’s pastime is all about, but something does need to be done. Baseball needs to move out of Canada for the safety of the players and the fans and to maintain the integrity of the game. With the spread of SARS believed to occur through close contact with an infected individual, the Skydome could become a potential breeding ground for the disease.
Imagine what one infected baseball player could mean to the wellbeing of thousands. He comes into contact with hundreds of individuals associated with his own as well as his opponents’ teams. The threat of SARS was enough for Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter to wear a mask while visiting a Toronto hospital after dislocating his shoulder in a March 28 collision.
If a player is infected, contact with friends and family will then result in even more people at risk as the disease begins to spread throughout the United States. It will be at this juncture that baseball will postpone its season, and other American sporting organizations will follow suit. Baseball needs to take a harder look at the risk/reward factor in this situation and find an alternate site to play Canadian home games in.
The public-relations workers in baseball and other Canadian sporting leagues are trying desperately to convince fans that the chance of getting SARS is miniscule. Of the 2.5 million people living in the Toronto metropolitan area, only 136 cases have been reported. The statistical risk of getting the diseases is very small, and only 5.9 percent of those cases turn fatal. The problem, however, is that not even the World Health Organization knows where the disease came from or how it spreads. No public-relations tactics in the world can help skew those facts.
The Blue Jays open a nine-game home stand starting today against the Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers and Anaheim Angels, and at least one player is speaking out over the prospects of heading north of the border.
Angels pitcher Kevin Appier believes that the amount of cases in Toronto is enough to be concerned about. He is proposing that Major League Baseball move the May games to Anaheim, and then later in the season an Angels home series can be played in Toronto if the risk has lessoned or elevated.
Baseball is not the only sport being affected by SARS. The soccer world may in fact be most concerned of the issue abroad. Bayern Munich, which is expected to be crowned as the new German soccer champion in the upcoming weeks, may cancel a planned tour of China in July if there is not more known about the virus. The Asian Football Confederation has cancelled a new East Asian Soccer Championship and has postponed qualifiers for the women’s World Cup and the 2004 Olympics. The women’s world ice hockey championships have been cancelled in Beijing, China, as have international rugby games.
North American sporting organizations seem to be taking a much more laid back approach when it comes to sports and SARS. There was never any talk about canceling games in the Maple Leafs-Flyers series because there is a prevailing thought that a stadium is no more dangerous than a shopping center. But maybe those involved in that decision should look at how empty the shopping centers are becoming. Maybe something more should be done.
Athletes are the most vulnerable of individuals when it comes to SARS. Their travel forces them to come in contact with many individuals from many different places. When the Bucks played Toronto at the end of their regular season, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson called his home team to make sure that they were taking the SARS threat seriously. A few of the Bucks apparently still didn’t feel the threat was that big of a deal, as they came into close enough contact with a patron that landed them in court a week later.
Humans are prone to making mistakes, and professional athletes are notorious for thinking that somehow the rules don’t apply to them. In this instance, however, it is the responsibility of the leagues to protect their players and not subject them to this horrible outbreak. The games should be moved out of Toronto, and the safety of the public should be put before every other aspect in the situation.
