NEW YORK — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that the Yankees and Mets will hold spring training in the city as it stays on track to enter phase 2 of the coronavirus pandemic reopening process.
The governor said both baseball teams will prepare for a possible Major League Baseball season at their stadiums in the Bronx and Queens.
“I can’t wait to see spring training in New York,” Cuomo said. “It’s great news.”
The baseball teams were planning to hold their preseason training camps in Florida. But they agreed to move them north as the city and state continue to emerge from the worst of the COVID-19 crisis.
Cuomo said the Yankees and Mets will come up with a plan as soon as possible to train at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and CitiField in Queens.
“The state will work with them to come up with a plan that works,” he said. “This is a state that’s ready, willing and able to partner with sports teams safely.”
It’s still not certain that there will actually be a baseball season. Major League Baseball owners and the players union are haggling over the terms of a deal for a shortened campaign.
Even as he celebrated the news, Cuomo, a Democrat, hit Florida with a barb. The Sunshine State, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is still ordering arriving New Yorkers to quarantine for two weeks, is now in a much more precarious health situation, with infection rates soaring.
Several members of the Philadelphia Phillies have become sickened with coronavirus in recent days in Florida.
“Florida has a really difficult situation right now,” Cuomo said. “That would be a concern for anyone thinking about playing there.”
Cuomo made the surprise announcement just a day after saying he would halt his daily coronavirus news conferences.
He stressed that the recovery process is still going well and NYC remains on track to enter phase 2 on Monday.
Just 24 people died of coronavirus in the day ending Friday, Cuomo said, a number that remains encouragingly low.
Tests showed that just 1% of NYC residents are infected with COVID-19, another positive sign.
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