Cubs' 3-game series against Cardinals in St. Louis postponed after 3 more positive COVID-19 tests
ST. LOUIS — The Chicago Cubs’ three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium was postponed after three more positive COVID-19 tests from the Cardinals.
MLB announced a Cardinals staff member and two players tested positive in samples collected over the last two days.
Earlier, Friday’s game was postponed to “allow for additional testing and to complete the contact tracing process,” the league said in a statement.
The Cubs flew home to Chicago for four off days before their next scheduled game on Tuesday in Cleveland.
There was no word on when the games would be rescheduled. The Cubs are not scheduled to return to St. Louis, while the Cardinals have two trips to Wrigley Field, on Aug. 17-19 and Sept. 4-7.
“Based on the information MLB has shared with us, postponing this series is a necessary step to protect the health and safety of the Cardinals and the Cubs,” Cubs President Theo Epstein said in a statement. “Therefore, it is absolutely the right thing to do. While it’s obviously less than ideal, this is 2020 and we will embrace whatever steps are necessary to promote player and staff well being and increase our chances of completing this season in safe fashion.
“We will be ready to go on Tuesday in Cleveland. In the meantime, we wish the Cardinals personnel involved a quick and complete recovery.”
The Cardinals are next scheduled to play Monday-Wednesday against the Pittsburgh Pirates, before a rescheduled doubleheader against the Tigers in Detroit. Then they have a three-game series in Chicago against the White Sox on Aug. 14-16, including the “Field of Dreams” game in Iowa that was postponed.
Could the Cardinals play against the Cubs at Wrigley in the daytime on Aug. 15 and at Sox Park at night, with the Cubs playing the Brewers that night? Two doubleheaders with four teams?
Doubtful, but who knows what can happen in the daily drama that is 2020 season.
Cubs players and staff would have been put in a difficult position had the series not been postponed, trying to be empathetic with the Cardinals while at the same time being concerned for their own health and safety.
The Cardinals have now lost 10 games from their schedule. Initially, seven games were postponed after 13 members tested positive last week in Milwaukee, including seven players. Players who were quarantined in a Milwaukee hotel flew back Wednesday and the team had workouts Wednesday and Thursday.
Because of all the postponements, the Cardinals will have to play 55 games in 49 days if they play a complete 60-game season.
The postponements were no surprise. Cubs starter Jon Lester said last week he believed the series in St. Louis would be postponed, but MLB decided to return play this weekend.
The Cubs-Cardinals rivalry is one of the best in sports, and the series finale was scheduled for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. The rivals have met 2,420 times since their first game in 1892, and have packed ballparks in both Chicago and St. Louis for several years.
Friday would have been the first ever meeting without any fans inside the park, and many fans flocked to the restaurants at Ballpark Village outside Busch Stadium just to soak in the atmosphere.
The Cardinals’ COVID-19 outbreak has been tough for some fans, who like everyone else in baseball were anxious for the restart.
“I’m sure a lot of us are devastated,” said Michelle Remspecher of Ballwin, Mo., as she and her husband, Mike, had lunch in the Cardinals Nation restaurant. “We are a baseball town.”
But a baseball town without any baseball to watch has made some fans anxious, wondering when — or if — the Cardinals will be able to play next. Remspecher said she wasn’t sure the season could continue without MLB strictly enforcing the health and safety protocols.
“I watch some games, and there are no masks on during the national anthem,” she said. “And how come players who are not in the game are crammed together in the dugout instead of sitting in the extended dugout?
“I don’t know if they can continue because everyone has become complacent. If MLB wants to continue, the commissioner has to get serious about the social distancing and the extended dugouts and the high-fiving. I don’t blame the Cardinals. I blame the commissioner. He needs to oversee this better.”
At the Sports and Social Club across from Busch Stadium, 41-year-old Cardinals fan Chris Campbell of St. Louis said it was “a little disappointing” to hear the series was postponed but added he was “more concerned for the health and safety of the players.”
Campbell doesn’t blame Cardinals players for the outbreak, calling it the “luck of the draw” and an unfortunate coincidence. And despite the scheduling issues caused by the outbreak, he said it shouldn’t affect the team’s ability to win this year, even throwing in a gratuitous shot at the Cubs.
“Hopefully we can make them up, and if we do we’ll probably go 14-0,” he said. “And if we make them up against the Cubs, surely we’ll go 14-0 against them. Originally we thought the game was canceled because the Cubs were scared of us.”
The Cubs spent all day at their downtown hotel awaiting a decision on the final two games of the series. They already had left town by the time the announcement was made.
Busch Stadium was mostly empty Friday, though the sound of former Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck yelling “Go crazy, folks” was blaring over the loudspeakers outside the ballpark on a loop, along with other calls of Cardinals games by announcers Mike Shannon, John Rooney and Harry Caray.
The Cardinals gift shop still was open, and fans could buy an official Cardinals mask for $30 or a stuffed FredBird doll with the mascot wearing a mask.
On one rack was a T-shirt with three words: “Beer. Birds. Baseball.”
On Friday, they could’ve added one more word: Bummer.
———
©2020 Chicago Tribune
Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
