A year too late, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has finally announced that people only need to wear masks outdoors when congregating in large crowds. Although the rest of the updated mask guidance seems to deny the efficacy of vaccines, at least on the outdoors front, sanity has finally won. Now the government is finally recommending what people in most of the country have been doing since last summer.

Sadly, Major League Baseball has failed to follow suit. Although fans have returned to the stands to a limited extent, common sense hasn’t followed them. Although some 40% of adults in the country are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and despite everything we know about outdoor transmission, MLB rules remain needlessly strict.