Dave Heller has a bleak outlook for the 2020 Minor League Baseball season.
"I think realistically, it's hard to envision a scenario where we're playing baseball until the middle of July, at the earliest," Heller said in an interview Thursday, April 7.
Heller not only owns the Quad Cities River Bandits. He also owns the Billings Mustangs in Montana, the Lowell Spinners in Massachusetts, and the Wilmington Blue Rocks out of Delaware.
"We're not playing baseball right now, and we ought to be," Heller said. "It doesn't look like we're going to play baseball in the immediate future."
Heller says the decision to play or not to play Minor League Baseball all has to do with Major League Baseball. He says MLB will have to hold some sort of spring training, figure out which Minor League players go where and then get his roster from the big league's Houston Astros. Whether the country's health situation gets better in May, June, or beyond, getting the players together like that, could take up to a month.
"As opposed to a Menards or some other business where they decide one day that they're going to re-open, and they'll reopen the next day, for us there's going to be a three or four week leap time before we even know when we're going to reopen," Heller said.
The coronavirus is not just impacting him. Heller says he employs about 200 people, about 25 of them are full time, but on Tuesday, he offered them a little bit of hope.
"I've made the decision that we're not cutting anyone," Heller said. "We're not laying off anybody. We're not furloughing anybody. We're not reducing anybody's salary. We're not reducing anyone's pay."
Saturday, April 11th, you can help the River Bandits support our healthcare workers. At 10 a.m., the team will start collecting donations to be used at Genesis Health System.
Their list of collection items include Disposable non-latex gloves (vinyl is preferred), Bleach wipes, Anti-microbial hand soap, Spools of one-quarter to three-quarter inch elastic of any color, Regular protective face masks, N95 masks, Face shields, Tyvek one-piece coveralls, Eyeglass shields/goggles, Nasal testing swabs, and Hand sanitizer.
They'll be there until 3 p.m. that day, right outside Modern Woodmen Park, at Western Avenue and River Drive.