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PORT ST. LUCIE — Brandon Nimmo wasn’t expecting a vaccination mandate to play baseball in New York this season.
But the Mets outfielder and union representative said Wednesday it isn’t a major concern for the club, even with a significant number of players on the team unvaccinated against COVID.
“Right now we are still 3 ½ weeks away, so a lot can happen,” Nimmo said before a team workout at Clover Park. “When we get to that time, we can address it. Right now we’re just going to focus on baseball, we’ll see where all that stuff lands. If it comes time we’ll address that stuff.”
Nimmo declined to say if he was vaccinated. On Tuesday, The Post reported only about 55 percent of the Mets players were vaccinated at one point last season. Nimmo didn’t dispute that figure.
“I don’t know where we are now — we have many new guys,” Nimmo said. “I do know one thing: [A mandate] would affect baseball a lot more than it did basketball, so we’ll see where we’re at.”
MLB and the Players Association are involved in discussions with the mayor’s office about the mandate, which has prevented Nets star Kyrie Irving from playing in home games this season.
If the mandate stands, MLB players could be faced with lost pay and service time for games they don’t play.
“This is completely new,” Nimmo said. “We thought we had everything hashed out [in the CBA negotiations] and this is completely new.”
Nimmo mentioned the rule that reporters have to wear face coverings in the clubhouse — players and team employees are exempt from the edict — as an example of the inconsistencies occurring throughout the COVID fight. Nimmo said he argued against the face coverings for reporters in the CBA negotiations.
“I think there’s a lot of things that need to get hashed out and rethought,” he said. “Just because we did something one way for a while doesn’t mean it’s always the best decision. Saying, ‘That is the way we always did it,’ is not a good enough reason. Things change, information changes.”
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