Texas is open for business, and that means someone has to pay the price.
Two employees of the Texas Rangers spoke to the Daily News about their concerns after the club announced it would take full advantage of Gov. Greg Abbott’s relaxed coronavirus safety rules and welcome the maximum 40,518 fans to the ballpark for the team’s April 5 home opener vs. the Blue Jays. (No other team has even rolled out plans to be at half capacity yet, although the A’s have permission to if cases fall fast enough.)
Both employees who spoke to The News are hoping for the best while bracing for the worst. They asked for no identifying information other than their roles, a request the Daily News granted because they fear retribution from the team.
“Depending on how uncooperative customers are being, you may have to get police involved,” said a veteran front-office staffer of the upcoming season. “It’s that risk assessment in your brain. And a lot of times, it’s not going to come down on the side of public safety if you’re trying to keep your people from physical harm,” they said.
Many of their colleagues — especially the senior citizens stationed around Globe Life’s escalators and vessels — were hired as greeters, but he believes they are being positioned to manage conflict like bouncers.
“At least down here, most of them are older age…they’re working games so they can have something to do, and so they can get out and socialize,” they said, comparing them to Wal-Mart staffers. “It’s not an adversarial position. That’s not why they are doing this.”
“I know exactly how it’s gonna go,” said another Globe Life Field staffer, this one in a customer-facing role. “People already weren’t wearing masks.”
(In my recent experience at the World Series at Globe Life, fans and some workers also had their masks beneath their noses.)
The stadium staffer said they watched fans purposefully “hold a drink in their hands” to ward off mask enforcement.
“Like, (they) wouldn’t even be actively drinking or eating,” they said. “It’s such a simple thing to do. Take your sip of beer. Put your mask back on. It’s so easy. And people just didn’t care.”
Their anxieties reflect the legitimate fears of retail workers across the country, who have been tasked with enforcing mask mandates and thanked with heckling and abuse. And that’s not even the scariest hazard of a job that requires frequent contact with the public, with the risk increasing along lines of class and race. A recent study using data from the California Department of Public Health found that Black retail workers saw COVID mortality rates increase by 36%.
“They’re not going to just take this rolling over,” the stadium staffer said of Rangers fans. “‘Oh, well, the governor said we could do this,'” the staffer said, already preparing herself for the conflicts they’ll face at their job. “Well, you know, the organization still has rules. Major League Baseball still has rules in play. Like, you can’t do whatever you want.”
The Rangers are asking for “voluntary compliance” with their mask rule — on over the mouth and nose except for when eating or drinking — and will institute a three-strike policy for guests who violate safety rules before involving security to force rebellious fans off the premises. Both Rangers employees expect more conflict than the team is letting on.
“No one wants to deal with the pushback,” said the stadium staffer. “I’m not getting paid enough to you know, escalate situations and conflict. I just don’t.”
Both also claim the team did not inform them of their revised Opening Day plans and safety measures.
“I’m irritated, I felt like I was kind of blindsided,” the customer-facing employee said. When they spoke to the News on Thursday — a day after the Rangers announcement and more than a week after Abbott’s — the only notice they received came from an article in The Athletic.
While COVID cases in Texas have plunged significantly, the state still had over 6,000 active cases. And according to the New York Times, Texas is 46th out of 50 U.S. states in vaccine distribution. Neither staffer the News spoke to is eligible for vaccination in Texas and both expressed concern about their health.
Baseball is an outdoor sport, and if you must be with 40,300 of your closest friends to watch Rangers righty Kyle Gibson go for his 70th win, it’s better to do so outdoors. But some parts of the retractable-roof ballpark more resemble an indoor arena.
“The new place is more self-contained behind the seats. Almost more like a basketball arena down there where you can’t see the field,” said the front office worker of the lower concourse eating areas.
All three of Texas’ NBA teams — the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, and nearby Dallas Mavericks — have committed to keeping arena capacity at 25% despite Gov. Abbott’s executive order, at least for now.
“And, what happens if I get sick?,” the stadium staffer asked. “I need my hours. Like, I don’t know how that works. Do I just, like, not get paid?” Also, they said the Rangers don’t provide health insurance for their job.
“It takes one person taking off their mask for an extended period of time. Three strikes my ass. We’ve been dealing with this for a year.”
The front office staffer, meanwhile, remains resentful of the Rangers organization’s behavior throughout the pandemic, from furloughs of staffers (some of who were paid less than $40,000 annually) to a COVID outbreak in the ballpark offices caused by the team forcing workers back to their desks in June. In his opinion, the team’s latest decision is more of the same.
“At every turn,” the front office worker said, “they prove that they were more interested in finding ways for the club to make money, rather than protecting the interests of their employees there.”
Asked about safety concerns over the Rangers’ decision to open at full capacity, an MLB spokesperson touted the “successful and memorable 2020 season.”
Rangers President Neil Leibman, who did not respond to the News’ request for comment, told the Dallas Morning News he was “very, very encouraged by Governor Abbott’s order” before announcing the team would push the state guidelines to their limits.
Meanwhile, the stadium staffer is still waiting for clear answers from the Rangers so they can return to work with confidence the team is doing everything in their power to keep them safe.
“I’m just trying to figure out a way to understand how this makes sense. Because it doesn’t.”
To share tips on this or any story with Bradford, reach him at bdavis@nydailynews.com, @_beewilly on Twitter or 646-481-0859 on Signal.
