The Boston Red Sox Wednesday, March 25, 2020 * The Boston Globe Red Sox minor leaguer tests positive for coronavirus Julian McWilliams The Red Sox announced Tuesday night that a minor leaguer had tested positive for COVID-19. The player’s positive test occurred March 23 following his return home. The Sox said he was last at Fenway South March 15. The Red Sox kept the player’s name confidential and believe he contracted the virus after leaving spring training. As a precaution, the Red Sox decided to shut down all activity at Fenway South for at least two weeks. The facility will undergo a deep cleaning to disinfect the area. The Sox have instructed all players who came in close contact with the minor leaguer to self-quarantine for two weeks. Manager Ron Roenicke noted during a conference call last week that most of the major league players had returned home, but approximately eight to 15 players stayed back to work out. During that call, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said although a player hadn’t tested positive for the virus to that point, he knew it was a possibility. “That’s something we’re being very vigilant in monitoring,” Bloom said. “You look around and where this is going, obviously we know that it’s very, very possible that it’s going to happen at some point. We’re just trying to make sure everyone is educated and, again, stay in touch with everybody.” A new group is advocating for minor leaguers to be paid above the poverty line Michael Silverman A new group thinks minor league baseball players ought to earn a salary above the poverty line. What the “Advocates for Minor Leaguers” nonprofit appreciates is that getting Major League Baseball to buy into that bottom line will be a snap. “The first initiative is an immediate demand to more than double the minimum salary to $15,000 a year — that’s the level that would place these guys just above the poverty line and it’s also the amount that’s right around what a full-time minimum wage-earner makes,” said Garrett Broshuis, co-founder of AML, and also a St. Louis-based lawyer and former Giants pitching prospect. “So surely, MLB as an $10.7 billion industry can afford to pay these guys what a full-time minimum wage-earner would make. To do that would cost each MLB team far less than $2 million a year — that’s less than half what one average major league player costs.” Broshuis and a group of former and current minor leaguers founded the group (for more information, visit advocatesforminorleaguers.com) in large part because unlike their major league brethren, the thousands of minor leaguers among the 30 MLB franchises do not have a union or any formal structure to advocate for their rights. The federal individual poverty line is $12,760. For full-time workers making the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, the annual incomes works out to $15,080. Minor leaguers do not get paid for regular or extended spring training. During a usual five-month season starting in April, a rookie and Single-A player makes $3,480 a season, $7,000 for Double-A players and $10,040 at Triple-A. And while more and more stories are emerging about the plight of minor leaguers during the sport shutdown during the COVID-10 outbreak, the minor leaguers have dispersed without any say about their short- and long-term financial outlook. Major League Baseball did announce on Thursday that all 30 clubs would provide daily allowances through April 8, when spring training was supposed to end. As to what will happen to the sub-minimum wage paychecks minor leaguers were supposed to see when the season was set to begin on April 9 remains very much in the air. Fittingly, MLB will not turn its decision to the fate of the minor leaguers’ salaries until they hammer out details of what will happen to the major leaguers, who are represented by the powerful Major League Baseball Players Association. The prospect of minor-league players organizing and forming a union at this particular moment is virtually zero. Part of that is a collective mindset forged on an entrenched and fear-based mindset that may change in the future but not quickly enough. ““There’s very much the sentiment that ‘if you don’t like it, play better’ — it’s the overarching theme of minor league baseball, and it’s really unfortunate” said Ty Kelly, a recently retired major leaguer who was in the minor leagues last season and the 10 seasons before then. “It’s unfortunate (MLB doesn’t) view their players as investments. That’s all we can really ask for — to just treat them like they are the future members of your major league team that they most definitely can be, especially if you put in the time and energy to create an atmosphere where they can thrive and they can succeed and then they can be called up at some point and help your major league team make more money for you so you can continue going back and paying players in the minor leagues to help your major league team out in the future. It obviously only makes sense that you would treat all of your employees fairly, first of all, but then to treat them as investments — it just makes sense.” The group is looking to advocate for better overall working conditions for minor leaguers, which in large part will require raising awareness in the public. It hopes major leaguers will get behind the group, too. Another co-founder, former Mets’ minor league pitcher Raul Jacobson, still can’t shake the memories of the struggles his Latino teammates faced, who would pool their $45 weekly food stipend to “walk to WalMart and buy giant packages of frozen chicken and cook it on the electric stove in your hotel room — you’ll walk by the hotel and see four guys in a room who are eating out of one pot, and it’s mind-blowing to me that if you don’t want to eat the team-provided food you have to go meet up with three four other guys to make that happen,” said Jacobson. “They can’t just walk into McDonald’s and pay 10 bucks a meal. The only reason I could do it and I didn’t sign for any money but I had parents who were willing to help support me and go after my dream. That’s just not the reality for probably half the minor leaguers if not more.” * The Boston Herald Red Sox minor leaguer has tested positive for coronavirus Jason Mastrodonato It was always going to be dangerous to leave spring training complexes open. Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said last Thursday that he wouldn’t be surprised if somebody in the organization contracted the coronavirus. And on Tuesday, the Sox announced they had their first case. A minor league player tested positive on Monday, March 23, according to a release by the club. The player was not named due to respect for his privacy, but the team said he’s “doing well.” The infected player was last seen at the spring training facility in Fort Myers on March 15. Infected coronavirus patients can go as long as 13 days without showing symptoms, according to Harvard Medical School, but the club guesses it’s “more likely that he contracted COVID-19 after he left Fort Myers.” Regardless, the team decided to shut down the entire spring training complex at Fenway South for at least two weeks starting on Tuesday. There will be a “deep cleaning” to disinfect the facility. As of last Thursday, nobody in the organization had tested positive. “That’s something we’re being very vigilant in monitoring,” Bloom said last week. “You look around the way this is going, we know it’s very very possible it’s going to happen at some point. So we’re just trying to make sure everybody is educated and stay in touch with everybody.” Though MLB suspended spring training on March 12 and suspended spring training operations on March 13, the league decided to allow players to continue reporting to their team’s facilities if they wanted to. The Red Sox said most of the coaches went home and they reduced the staff reporting daily to the complex at JetBlue Park, but some players are still showing up. “We do have a crew there, a reduced crew, of medical staff and we have guys who are able to work out with players who are coming,” interim manager Ron Roenicke said last week. “They are showing up in waves. So the pitchers are showing up first in the morning. The guys who are in the area. And then in the afternoon the guys who are still there, the regulars are showing up to hit in the batting cages and to stay sharp that way.” Roenicke said anywhere from eight to 15 guys were showing up on a daily basis. Minor leaguers do not get paid during spring training but typically receive daily allowances. MLB announced last week they agreed to send lump sum payments to minor leaguers that would cover the allowances they would’ve received through April 8. MLB is still deciding how to handle paying minor leaguers from April 8 going forward. “We’ll see where we’re at from there,” Bloom said last week. “We’re glad that every club is doing that.