CINCINNATI — About 25% of Reds employees will be placed on furlough beginning June 1, the team announced Thursday in a statement. Others will take pay reductions to compensate for lost revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Like many other industries negatively impacted by COVID-19, we respect the sacrifices being made by our staff at this time,” the statement reads in part. “The Reds are confident that baseball will be back, and that the culture the Reds have created as an organization will withstand this unfortunate disruption to our normal course of business.”
Major League Baseball canceled its spring training season March 12 and announced that the start of the regular season would be delayed by an uncertain amount of time.
The league has since arrived at a proposed plan for an 83-game season beginning in early July, sans fans at any of the participating ballparks.
However, according to the New York Times, the plan faces a number of obstacles — chief among them the approval of the players’ union. Even if the union agreed, the question of player salaries would need to be ironed out, the league would have to procure enough COVID-19 tests to protect players and workers, and procedures would need to be developed in case of positive diagnoses during the season.
If the teams’ plan is accepted by the players, MLB will play its shortest season since the late 1870s.
