MLB's Smoke Safety Failure
After several games shrouded in smoke, its time for MLB to publish a smoke protocol
This Canadian wildfire season has been the worst on record, and the resulting smoke has caused Air Quality Indexes (AQIs) across the United States to spike past healthy levels. Major League Baseball is not immune from these air quality issues, as much as it might like to be. Although players have been grumbling about safety concerns regarding wildfire smoke for several years, MLB and MLB Players Association (MLBPA) have yet to publish a standardized protocol on how to deal with games facing air quality concerns.
In Pittsburgh on Thursday, June 29th, Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen made a statement by wearing a mask while running the bases. A player known for labor advocacy on the diamond, McCutchen expressed that “not enough concern” was placed on player safety when making the decision to play Thursday night’s game against the San Diego Padres. In cases like Thursday’s smoky atmosphere, McCutchen emphasized to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that “we don’t have to get the game in,” taking aim at MLB’s fear of revenue loss due to cancelled games.
In similar smoky conditions at Wrigley Field in Chicago several days earlier (the Air Quality Index was measured at 174, which is deemed “Unhealthy” by the EPA), MLB considered cancelling a game but eventually moved forward as planned. Chicago Cubs manager David Ross told The Athletic that the conditions were “not ideal.” Opposing manager Rob Thompson of the Philadelphia Phillies said he could smell the smoke the whole game, but said that “as long as it’s safe for the players, you play.”
While Thompson notes that MLB is thinking about player safety when deciding whether to play games in questionable conditions, the process for deciding what qualifies as “unsafe” is ambiguous. Currently, it appears that players discuss amongst themselves about the air quality, and each team’s MLBPA representative takes those thoughts to a pregame conversation with the MLB Commissioner’s office, who has the power to cancel games. According to Phillies outfielder Kyle Schwarber, however, the final call is not up to the players. He told The Athletic, “We can tell them what we prefer, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be the health (experts) to make the decision if it’s good enough to play.”
Unlike rain delays, which have a formalized and public procedure, MLB is currently figuring out smoke delays and cancellations on the fly. Cubs infielder Nico Hoerner told The Athletic that “until somebody goes out and sets a standard of what that is, it’s just an arbitrary line. We’re all trying to figure it out together.”
The “arbitrary line” does not seem to be working for everyone. After Thursday night’s game in Pittsburgh, Pirates catcher Austin Hedges expressed his displeasure at MLB for moving forward with a game he felt was "kind of scary” to play in. Hedges told Pittsburgh’s 97.5 The Fan radio station that he believes MLB’s profit motive “takes precedent over player health.” It’s not difficult to see Hedges’s point of view, considering that physical exertion (like playing baseball) is one of the things that health agencies recommend avoiding in smoky conditions.
Part of the problem facing the sport is a lack of smoke safety education for players worried about taking the field. Several players have shared that they don’t know what is safe and what isn’t, with Cubs outfielder Ian Happ wondering if any studies had been published and Hoerner saying that “air quality numbers and things like that are not something I’m really familiar with.” When discussing the pregame conversations in the Pittsburgh locker room on Thursday, Andrew McCutchen described little substantiative information being shared and no access to any health experts who may be consulting with the league. Regardless of the actual condition of the air, having adequate safety information communicated to the players before taking the field seems like a no-brainer for the league.
This confusing experience for players demonstrates that even with several years of warning signs, MLB has been caught flat-footed by the smoke. The first signs of a potentially smoky future came in 2020 when the Seattle Mariners first dealt with serious air quality concerns at T-Mobile Park. In September that year, after a game in Seattle that caused shortness of breath for A’s starting pitcher Jesús Luzardo, MLB moved two games between the Mariners and the Oakland Athletics to San Francisco to avoid unhealthy air conditions in Seattle. Last season, the first playoff game in Seattle in more than 20 years was veiled in a noticeable layer of wildfire smoke.
Digging into the AQI readings in the cities where MLB has cancelled or relocated games unearths an approximate AQI limit of 200 where the league feels comfortable playing games. In fact, Bob Melvin, the Oakland A’s manager in 2020, said that an AQI of 200 was his understanding of MLB’s air quality threshold, although when the A’s and Mariners took the field in Seattle on September 14th, 2020 the AQI read 220. This season, games in cities with AQI readings over 300 have been cancelled, while games in cities hovering in the 150-180 AQI range have gone forward as planned, indicating that 200 could still be the level MLB deems acceptable.
Even if MLB does have an established policy of not playing games with an AQI over 200, that may not be enough to properly minimize risks to player safety. The EPA has six air quality thresholds, and 200 AQI is the border between “Unhealthy” and “Very Unhealthy.” For the 150-180 range, where games like the June 29th game in Pittsburgh fall, the EPA recommends reducing the amount of intense outdoor activity. Professional sports would definitely fall under that category, indicating that perhaps MLB should return to the drawing board, if the 200 AQI threshold is in fact the rule.
MLB will likely have more opportunities this season to develop and refine new smoke procedures, with scientists warning that wildfire smoke may hover over the US for most of the summer due to wind patterns and continued burning in Canada. If those predictions hold true, MLB must progress past its current policy of “we’re all trying to figure it out as we go” and develop a more serious and transparent set of standards and operating procedures. If MLB is looking to avoid players continuing to criticize its safety protocols, a clearly communicated and well reasoned safety protocol that minimizes health risks for the players would go a long way to restoring trust between concerned players and the league.
In the meantime, fires in Canada show no signs of slowing down, potentially causing additional games to be played in the smoke. Even the MLB All-Star Game, happening in Seattle next week, could be in danger of a smoke-out. Local agencies have begun to prepare Seattle residents for the beginning of smoke season with air quality expected to worsen after the Fourth of July. MLB would do well to follow in the footsteps of the Seattle public health agencies and provide players with the information and protocols they need to feel safe in advance of the All-Star game and second half of the season. The longer the league waits to address the issue, the more negative attention the league draws from player and fan criticism, and the less it looks like the league cares about the safety of the players and fans.