Closing Off Locker Rooms, but Not the Stands, Over Coronavirus Concerns

The four major active sports leagues in the U. S. decided to bar nonessential individuals, including reporters, from clubhouses and locker rooms. But thousands of fans are still attending the games.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Bryce Harper, one of baseball’s biggest stars, kept inching closer to reporters while chatting in a tunnel at Spectrum Field here on Tuesday. On a normal day, the interview would have been held at Harper’s locker in the Philadelphia Phillies’ spring training clubhouse. But on Tuesday a Phillies public relations official instructed Harper and a handful of media members to remain six feet apart from each other, in accordance with new leaguewide regulations put in place over concerns about the novel coronavirus during baseball’s preseason — and perhaps beyond.

Harper, though, was not concerned. By the time his 11-minute interview session was over, he had moved to within a couple of feet of the reporters. He even offered to hug one. “I just live, man,” Harper, a 27-year-old slugger, said.

“I don’t worry about a disease or a virus or anything; I live my life. I’m doing everything the same. I’m shaking people’s hands, I’m high-fiving them. ” But Major League Baseball — along with the N.

B. A. , the N. H.

L. and Major League Soccer — are more concerned. On Monday, they jointly instituted new regulations restricting locker room access to only players and “essential employees. ” For the first time in recent memory, members of the news media were excluded from the locker rooms of all four major active North American sports leagues at the same time.

Typically, media members are granted access before and after games to talk to players and gather information for their reports. Starting Tuesday, and for the foreseeable future, players will instead be brought out of the clubhouses and locker rooms to speak with reporters in hallways or on the field, with league officials recommending a minimum of six feet between them. Harper and Rhys Hoskins, the Phillies’ first baseman, both said they were following those guidelines. But after they leave the stadium, they said, they have been following their normal routines, including shopping and eating at public restaurants.