Philadelphia Phillies COVID-19 tests results are incredibly good news for baseball

The COVID-19 outbreak in MLB is thankfully not as bad as we initially thought. 

Baseball has gone through a grinder in the last 24 hours. The sports world went from celebrating the return of the second North American sport to return to regular-season action (the NSWL returned in late-June)

Thankfully, the news is good. According to ESPN, none of the Phillies players tested positive for COVID-19.

This is the news MLB wanted to hear, and frankly, it’s the news everyone wanted to hear. The idea of sports coming back when we as a society have done literally nothing to deserve it was met with an understandable amount of doubt. Baseball suffering an outbreak one weekend into its season was potentially devastating news that had a ripple effect far beyond the sport.

Sports leagues in general still have to do a lot to keep their player safe, and holding games in the middle of one of the worst affected countries by the global pandemic is already proving to be an extremely risky idea. This was a crisis averted, but whether or not that extremely loud warning shot it fired is truly acknowledged is yet to be seen.

While the Phillies’ tests are good news, no one is out of the woods yet.

“It’s important to understand that just because the Phillies’ tests have come back clean today doesn’t clear them,” ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted. “The incubation period for the coronavirus, per the CDC, is up to 14 days. No positives today doesn’t mean there are no positives. A good initial sign, though.”

The news about the Phillies testing negative for COVID-19 is less about baseball and all about the players being safe. How a 14-day quarantine will affect the schedule is secondary to the health and safety of the human beings that are playing them.