By Sebastian Grignano
From a national standpoint, baseball during a pandemic is very different from state to state and city to city these days. COVID-19 and all the protocols that have come along with it have made the game into an unfamiliar atmosphere as restrictions on fans and capacities have been put into place in both the college and professional game.
In the major leagues, stadiums are allowing a very wide range of fans to come to the games. The stadiums have figured out their own separate capacity levels based on what state they are in and how comfortable they feel with keeping the stadium extra clean and trying to keep everyone safe at the same time. The amounts of fans being allowed to come to the games range from 1,000 to 40,300 people.
When you are showing your ticket to get into the stadium you must, of course, be wearing a mask and show proof of being fully vaccinated or have a negative test on hand in a certain time span to ensure you are not at high risk or putting others in danger when entering the ballpark. Unlike a restaurant or any other time during the pandemic you must keep your mask on at all times sitting or moving around the stadium — the only exception is to eat or drink something.
As for the players, they are not required to wear masks during their time on the field, but some of the athletes go ahead and wear their mask or wear a gator which sits at the neck and they pull it up over their mouth and nose when they come close to the opposing team in efforts to remain healthy and not contract the virus. In the college game, from my observations, experience, and research, the capacity and protocols are not the same and vary almost even more than they do in the professional game.
At the division two and three levels, money is not necessarily the motive and large crowds usually do not make time out of their days to attend the games other than parents and a few students here and there. Personally, we have only been allowed to have our senior parents to come to one game for senior day; otherwise we have not been allowed any spectators for the duration of the season. It was very nice to experience some type of atmosphere with a small amount of parents allowed to come, but it certainly is something that is missed in the game.
As for the division one league, specifically in the south, college baseball is a huge deal and brings in large amounts of money from ticket sales, foods, and beverages. I have seen teams such as Arkansas, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State have their stadiums almost at full capacity, with no attempt to social distance and most people are not wearing a mask. The even crazier thing is that a very small amount of cases have been reported from these events, and I think this is a sign that it is time to restore normal life, to go away with the masks and protocols, stop being scared and realize COVID-19 is going to be something we must live with.
