Yankees, Mets Inclusion In NYC’s Vaccine Mandate Might Prove Helpful In Getting Nets Irving Back On Home Court

BrooklynNets.com

Kyrie Irving was never going to be presented as an ideal victim. Sure, the Nets superstar is a virtuoso on the basketball court, as evidenced by his franchise-record 60-point explosion in Brooklyn’s 150-108 romp in Orlando on Tuesday night. Augmented by years of hard work at his craft, Irving is as supremely gifted in the game’s fundamentals as any player in league history.

However, despite his talent and all the charitable deeds he has bestowed upon his community, Irving’s history of divisive points of view, righteous or otherwise, placed limits on the degree of sympathy he engenders when he believes he is wronged.

Now, Irving himself initially chose the wrong path by passing on the COVID-19 vaccine that 99% of his NBA colleagues took without any adverse effects. But it’s not Irving who is looking like a science denier these days—it’s New York City Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.

So maybe the news from earlier in the day on Tuesday that both the Mets and the Yankees will be similarly constrained by New York City’s Private Employer COVID-19 vaccine mandate will change the tune.

Yes, it’s possible to have two seemingly conflicting thoughts coexisting in one’s brain—Irving should get vaccinated and the mandate that prohibits him from participating in Nets games within the city confines should be rescinded.

It’s one thing for Adams to punish Irving—like the vast majority of his voters who follow the NBA, he’s a self-avowed Knicks fan--but good luck to him if his policies affect the City’s Major League Baseball teams. The consensus conclusion from reporters is that the Yankees Aaron Judge, a much more widely popular athlete in the area, is unvaccinated. Can you imagine the outrage if he’s not patrolling the pristine Yankee Stadium grass in right field on Opening Day?

With regard to the Mets, they were reportedly under the 85% vaccinated threshold for loosened restrictions last season, so though the public doesn’t know the particular status of any player on the 2022 roster, it’s quite possible that certain key members will face the same predicament as Kyrie.

Big things are expected from both MLB clubs this season, so any demise that could be traced to overreaching policies would be the last thing a politician needs. Adams may have just started his four-year term in January, but New York has a race for Governor in November. His party should be banging his head to fix the problem, which is the absurd inconsistencies in the protocols.

Adams ended the Key2NYC vaccine requirements on March 7, so among the 18,057 fans, many of them not wearing masks, crammed alongside me inside Barclays Center on Sunday for Brooklyn’s victory over the Knicks, there were undoubtedly some number who were unvaccinated. That’s safer for the broader community than if Irving had played?

Though I was incorrect in my last Nets post in that Irving was not allowed in Brooklyn’s locker room at halftime on Sunday—the NBA fined the Nets $50,000 for the violation—he can still practice at the team’s Industry City facility and sit (maskless) courtside at home games while unvaccinated non-NYC opponents are eligible to play. The fact that these same rules apply to MLB, an outdoor sport, makes them worth even less than the keyboard they were typed on.

Other than a mini-rant from Irving’s teammate Kevin Durant after Sunday’s game (how did you all like KD’s subsequent non-apology apology?), the Nets have been patient all season for such a moment where the community spread has receded enough for the City to lift the mandate. The Yankees and Mets have similarly kept quiet. Still, Adams has demurred, making him appear as illogically obstinate as Irving has been in his anti-vaxx stance.

Remember, it’s not like any rescission occurs with the snap of a finger. There’s always a contingency, as in, “If certain markers move in X ways, the rules will go away on Y date.” Adams hasn’t even reached that point. (Insert GIF of Judge Smails from “Caddyshack” mouthing, “Well, we’re waiting!”)

According to the NYC Health Department website, the most recent seven-day, daily average stats on cases, hospitalizations, and deaths were about 600/8/5. That represents an approximately 97% decline in all three metrics from two months ago, near the peak of the Omicron variant.

I am well aware that the pandemic isn’t over, that a subvariant is distressingly making the rounds in Europe. Health care policy, though, is still supposed to match the data and the science. The “BA.2” subvariant is already here, making up more than 10% of measured cases in NYS, and though it may be more contagious, it is not impacting the number of severe outcomes.

And that’s what the vaccines are for--to minimize severe outcomes, not protect everyone from infection. So this idea that a vaccinated player could get more sick from close proximity to an infected Irving, who gets tested before every game, by the way, than he would from another vaccinated player who caught an undetected breakthrough infection is false. According to scientists, there is no difference in viral loads upon shedding between vaccinated versus unvaccinated people..

My view when it comes to private companies: How best to keep their employees safe should have always been more of a collaborative effort than a one-size-fits-all government mandate. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the former Mayor’s way—he was an annoyingly haughty “I know best” sort.

Keeping the Private Employer mandate now, though, isn’t about science or following the data at all—it’s about politics. On that note, KD was exactly right, even if the Nets made him regret saying it. Adams fired over 1,000 city workers after the mandate went into effect on December 27 and doesn’t want to have to explain to the unions why he’s suddenly caving to celebrities.

Only now it’s grown beyond Irving, who was always a poor spokesmen for the mandate debate (After Tuesday’s effort, Irving joked that he should get a press pass to watch Wednesday’s home game against Dallas, unaware that media members are required to be vaccinated and boosted to get credentialed--another cringeworthy comment that didn’t help his cause). The local MLB teams’ inclusion is shining a brighter light on Adams’ unjustified stance for maintaining the status quo. That’s a good thing for Nets fans who worry Irving will never set foot on the Barclays Center floor in uniform this season.