New York City mayor Eric Adams will announce tomorrow that the municipality’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement for professional athletes will be lifted, according to a report from Sally Goldenberg of Politico. The news means that unvaccinated players on the Yankees and Mets — who were previously prohibited from playing in home games — will no longer be blocked from playing at Yankee Stadium or Citi Field, write Adrian Wojnarowski and Jeff Passan of ESPN.
ESPN writes that MLB officials had been in contact with the mayor’s office in recent days about the possibility of the Yankees and Mets being down some players for home games. League officials had maintained optimism the situation would eventually be resolved, but Wojnarowski and Passan report that the MLB Players Association had recently sent a memo to agents who represent players on those teams about the possible consequences they’d face for missing games on account of vaccination status.
As part of the new collective bargaining agreement, that includes lost service time and pay. That now only figures to be relevant in Toronto, as the Canadian government is preventing unvaccinated players from entering the country. That won’t have any impact on the Mets, but the Yankees are slated to play ten road games against the Blue Jays this season. Unvaccinated players are still prohibited from participating in those games and will be placed on the restricted list for those contests.