Biden Says Opening Day Capacity In Texas Is A ‘Mistake’

As baseball fans return to ballparks across the country, President Joe Biden isn’t completely thrilled with the way each team is handling Opening Day. The commander-in-chief disagrees with the Texas Rangers’ decision to host a full crowd in their first home game of the 2021 MLB season.

“Well, that’s a decision they made. I think it’s a mistake,” Biden told ESPN’s Sage Steele in a “SportsCenter” interview that aired Tuesday night. “They should listen to Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, the scientists and the experts. But I think it’s not responsible.”

On March 10, the Rangers announced that they planned to host fans at full capacity to start the year. While every other stadium around the league is only opened with a limited capacity, Texas will try to fill all 40,300 seats at Globe Life Field.

With MLB’s official Opening Day kicking off Thursday, the Rangers start the season on the road. Texas hosts the Toronto Blue Jays in its home opener Monday, when the Rangers will become the first MLB team in over 17 months to allow a full-capacity crowd. In games following the homer opener, the Rangers will operate at a lower capacity with some “distanced seating.”

In Kansas City, where Texas starts its season Thursday, up to 10,000 fans can watch the game in-person at Kauffman Stadium. Other teams have imposed similar attendance limits based on their ballpark's seating capacity. Only the Rangers are starting the season with a capacity anywhere north of 21,500 fans.

“In terms of it being responsible [for stadiums to open at full capacity] -- you see what's happening in Europe now when they lifted the mandates,” Biden said. “I don’t know why we don't just follow the science and beat this -- just flat out beat it. We are going to have enough vaccinations, vaccinators. We’ve opened places. We’re doing everything we can to make it clear to people, ‘Get the vaccine as quickly as you can get it.’”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott removed the state’s mask mandate and capacity limits on businesses on March 10. Texas’ seven-day average of coronavirus cases is 3,688, according to The New York Times, down from an average of 4,909 on the day the restrictions were lifted.

MLB played a truncated 60-game season schedule last year because of the pandemic. No fans attended games during the regular season. Globe Life Field hosted the NLCS and World Series with just under 11,500 fans allowed at each game.