The Texas Rangers announced Wednesday that they will allow 100% capacity at Globe Life Field for their home opener in Arlington. The announcement comes a week after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he was revoking the mask’s state mandate and opening Texas “100%.”
“Rangers are encouraged that the Governor’s Office has allowed us to fully open Globe Life Field at the start of the 2021 Major League Baseball season,” business operations president and chief operating officer Neil Leibman said in a press release on Wednesday, according to a statement of press. CBS Sports. Liebman said all participants will be required to wear a mask or face.
Rangers also intends to allow maximum capacity for the last two exhibition games. After the opening day, Rangers will move to a system in which certain sections will allow “remote placement”, according to the team’s website. The stadium has a capacity of about 40,000 people, according to MLB.com.
“We will not have remote seats available for the Opening Day, because we are committed to everyone [season ticket holders] that they could hold tickets if we allowed them the proper opening day, “executive vice president and director of revenue and marketing Joe Januszewski told MLB.com.” We will honor this, so in order to do this, we would obviously be at full capacity. “
Fans with tickets for the opening day, who feel uncomfortable participating in the game, will be allowed to change their tickets for a future game.
- Follow the attendance plans of each MLB team here.
The April 5 meeting with the Toronto Blue Jays will mark the first Rangers game on their new fan stadium. Up to 11,500 were allowed to participate in each match of the 2020 National League Championships and the World Series, both of which were played entirely at Globe Life Field, which served as a neutral site to prevent teams from traveling.
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No fans were allowed to play any regular season games during the shortened MLB season of the 2020 pandemic. While many teams have announced plans to allow limited attendance in 2021, the Rangers are so far the only team that allows stadium capacity. 100% even in one game.
Houston Astros announced Wednesday that it will allow a limited number of fans to participate in home games at Minute Maid Park this season, reports CBS affiliate KHOU-TV. The team has not yet made a decision on the exact number of fans who will be allowed to participate.
Abbott’s announcement that Texas will drop mask mandates and business restrictions harsh criticism from President Joe Biden. Starting Tuesday, Texas ranked 47 of all 50 states, as a percentage of the population, receive at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine.
“I am worried that we are in favor of the perfect storm. We are removing the restrictions, version B.1.1.7 is here in a big way and we are lagging behind in terms of vaccinations. None of this is good news,” said Dr Peter Hotez, Dean of Baylor College of Medicine. “We’ll be in much better shape in a few months from now. I don’t really understand the urgency of lifting the restrictions.”
More than 45,500 people in Texas have died since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Jonathan Vigliotti contributed to the report.