Two Kansas City Royals, relief pitcher Kelvin Harris and right fielder Alex Rios, have been sent home from the Royals current road trip — because they’ve been diagnosed with Chickenpox. The main concern is whether others have been exposed. The locker room, even a Major League Baseball locker room, is a confined space. So are the planes, buses and dugouts. These guys spend a lot of time in close proximity to one another.
In news that Donald Trump may be thinking of using in his “dangers foreigners present” campaign narrative, an AP article speculated that it’s possible that the recent vaccination of shortstop Alcides Escobar may have brought the chicken pox to the team. Escobar, a seven-year veteran from Venezuela, was vaccinated as part of his preparation for gaining American citizenship. AP reported it was “unclear whether [Escobar’s recent vaccination] may have introduced the virus to the clubhouse.” A New York surgeon we interviewed said there was about a 0% chance of that happening. But Escobar is an easy scapegoat for anything right now: he went 2-for-25 to close out August for the Royals.
