Yankees: Zack Britton’s Comments on COVID-19 Are What Everyone Needs to Hear

Yankees reliever Zack Britton has expressed concern about MLB’s return amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regardless of what fans think, Major League Baseball is not in the clear. While New York Yankees fans are excited at the prospect of taking home championship No. 28 in a shortened 2020 season, there’s still grave concern the year might not be able to finish due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Medical experts are expecting a possible second wave of cases come October, which is right in the wheelhouse of playoff baseball. Everybody needs to proceed with caution, and perhaps nobody has vocalized that better than Yankees reliever Zack Britton.

The left-hander is apprehensive about flying his wife and kids to stay with him in New York for a multitude of reasons. First of all, traveling during these times is far from a safety measure, and on top of that, New York was the hardest hit state — and New York City the hardest hit city — in the US since the pandemic began.

These players are coming back to do their jobs, but they weren’t expecting to be separated from their families for three months in order to keep everyone as safe as possible.

“I don’t think I’m fearful but I’m definitely nervous to see how this all plays out, and I just hope that guys — my biggest concern is that I want guys to do the right thing and stay isolated to and from the ballpark and it’s the responsibility of everybody involved in this whole thing to make sure we’re following these guidelines,” Britton told Brendan Kuty of NJ.com.

“This is bigger than one individual,” Britton continued. “This is about keeping our entire team — and not just our team, but the support staff and all of the people that help us do our jobs on the field. It’s about keeping everyone safe. That’s a pretty stern message but it’s the right message, I think, at this time, when the whole nation in general is making sacrifices and I think it’s only fair and the right thing that we do the same.”

Britton is excited to play and remains confident the safety measures MLB is putting in place will help keep everyone healthy, but the reliever echoing the sentiment that it’s on the players and league as a whole to ensure the implementation is near-flawless is certainly a message we all need to hear and understand.