Rosenthal: Vaccination decisions put two MLB coaches at a crossroad

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 06:  Third base coach Brian Butterfield #55 talks with Kean Wong #8 of the Los Angeles Angels in the first inning at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on September 06, 2021 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
By Ken Rosenthal
Jan 21, 2022

Their relationship goes back nearly 40 years. Brian Butterfield was Buck Showalter’s minor-league teammate with the Yankees’ Double A Nashville affiliate in 1982, then his first base coach with the Yankees in 1994-95, before helping him launch the expansion Diamondbacks from 1996 to 2000. When the Mets named Showalter manager last month, it seemed likely he would pursue Butterfield, who had been dismissed by the Angels early in the offseason. But the possibility of Butterfield joining the Mets ended before it got started.

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Why? Because Butterfield is not vaccinated for COVID-19.

Butterfield, who has coached for six major-league clubs, remains unemployed and says he is content to remain at home in Maine for the 2022 season. Meanwhile, a Red Sox coach who could not participate in the 2021 postseason because he was unvaccinated, Tom Goodwin, received the vaccine this offseason and recently accepted a position as the Braves’ roving minor-league outfield instructor after he did not receive a major-league offer.

Butterfield, 63, and Goodwin, 53, had different reasons for their refusals to be vaccinated during the 2021 season. Their situations reflect the impact such choices can have on the careers of non-playing uniformed personnel. At least one other unvaccinated member of a 2021 coaching staff is currently out of the game, sources said.

Major League Baseball has discussed mandating vaccines for all minor league players and staffers in 2022, and according to a source has yet to decide on a policy for major-league coaches and staff. MLB cannot mandate vaccines for major-league players without the consent of the players’ union, which encourages but does not require the shots.

When the Red Sox dismissed Goodwin in late October, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said, “(Goodwin’s) vaccination status had nothing to do with this decision. This was a baseball decision.” Goodwin, however, said he knew he likely would need to be vaccinated to continue working in baseball. He received doses of the vaccine in November and December before he accepted the Braves’ position. He said he did not receive any calls about major-league jobs.

Why didn’t Goodwin just get the shots before the playoffs began so that he could have remained the Red Sox’s first base coach as the team beat the Yankees in the wild-card game and the Rays in the Division Series before falling to the Astros in the ALCS? He said he was not comfortable that the league waited until Sept. 15 before revealing it would require non-playing personnel to be vaccinated in order to gain access to the field and other restricted areas in the postseason. He also wanted to do additional research on the vaccine.

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 63 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and 75 percent has received at least one dose. CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Dec. 29 that unvaccinated people are about 10 times more likely to test positive than vaccinated people, 17 times more likely to be hospitalized and 20 times more likely to die from COVID-related complications.

“I’ve never been an anti-vax guy. I didn’t feel it was right the way MLB was doing it,” Goodwin said. “I really felt — and it was just how I felt, maybe I was wrong, maybe I wasn’t — but that we were being bullied, the personnel who did not get vaccinated, by MLB. Because they could bully us. They could bully the coaches.”

Goodwin is a former outfielder who played 14 seasons in the majors with six teams. Former players who become coaches and managers, as members of management, no longer fall under the protection of the players’ union.

“It brings up that there needs to be some sort of coaches’ union that will fight for us in a situation like this, where if a guy had strong beliefs about not being vaccinated, those should count for something. It shouldn’t just be OK, ‘Well, then you’re done,’” Goodwin said. “There was no choice. It was either you get vaccinated or you’re not going to be on the field. And I was like, there are going to be players on the field who are not vaccinated.”

Butterfield offers a different perspective than Goodwin because he simply does not believe in the vaccine. His departure from the Angels, according to a club source, was unrelated to his stance. “There were some other things. I’d rather not talk about that. It was a little bit of a difficult situation,” Butterfield said. Showalter reached out to him after getting the Mets’ job, but Butterfield said because he was unvaccinated, the talks could not proceed.

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“It comes down to what I believe in,” Butterfield said. “The stuff that I’ve felt for years about our Food and Drug Administration, everything that goes on behind the vaccinations, I have real strong feelings about not wanting to put that into my body.”

Butterfield’s views do not agree with the prevailing science. More than 529 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were given in the U.S. from Dec. 14, 2020, through Jan. 18, 2022, according to the CDC. The vaccines were evaluated in tens of thousands of participants in clinical trials, met FDA standards to support emergency use authorization and continue to undergo the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history. MLB is one of numerous private industries that has announced vaccine mandates for all or some of its employees.

Showalter said he did not agree with Butterfield’s opposition to the vaccine. But he recalled his former coach’s stubborn streak on baseball matters from their days together with the Yankees and Diamondbacks, and was not about to get into an argument with him.

“I know him too well to try to talk him into something like that,” said Showalter, who regards Butterfield as the best infield coach in baseball, adding that the Phillies’ Bobby Dickerson, Mariners’ Perry Hill and Braves’ Ron Washington are also among the elite and that he might regard Mets new third-base coach Joey Cora just as highly once he gets to know him better.

“I love him to death,” Showalter said of Butterfield. “If he called me tomorrow and said, ‘I’ve changed my mind and I’ll come,’ I’d figure out every which way I could to get him.”

If Butterfield had joined Showalter with the Mets, the two would have reunited for the first time in more than two decades. The D-Backs fired Showalter after the 2000 season, prompting Butterfield, a former minor-league infielder to return to the Yankees as a minor-league manager for one-plus seasons. He then spent 10 1/2 years with the Blue Jays as a coach and five with the Red Sox, helping instruct the 2013 World Series champions before joining the Cubs and Angels. He said he harbors no bitterness toward the Angels and is at peace with the latest turn in his career.

“Honestly, I feel like it’s a blessing in disguise,” he continued. “I didn’t see my wife for the last two years. She’s a little bit of a risk, so we didn’t bring her out to the West Coast. I’m as far as you can go on the East Coast, and then I was working the last two years as far as you can go on the West Coast. I’m glad to be back in the snow and the cold, I really am. I’m glad to be with my family. I’m in a great spot.”

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He just will not be in baseball in 2022.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said Major League Baseball had mandated vaccines for all minor league players and staffers in 2022, but they are still discussing the issue. We apologize for the mistake.

(Photo of Brian Butterfield: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

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Ken Rosenthal

Ken Rosenthal is the senior baseball writer for The Athletic who has spent nearly 35 years covering the major leagues. In addition, Ken is a broadcaster and regular contributor to Fox Sports' MLB telecasts. He's also won Emmy Awards in 2015 and 2016 for his TV reporting. Follow Ken on Twitter @Ken_Rosenthal