The NFL initial changed the rules after Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey took a COVID-19 test, played against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday and then on Monday got a positive test result back. There were six Ravens players that were considered high-risk due to their close contact with Humphrey and now they're forced to quarantine for five days. Couple that news with the latest from the 49ers, and its evident why the NFL is enforcing these new face mask rules.

Fiers shaved off the tail after that game, but perhaps the legend is true that cats have nine lives. On Wednesday, it made a comeback, sort of.

Joon Lee: Recency bias! The Chris Sale trade in 2016 from the Chicago White Sox to the Boston Red Sox is a move that had ramifications for the Red Sox franchise beyond the team's World Series title in 2018. Dave Dombrowski's decision to sign Sale to a massive extension (paired with the four-year, $68 million contact given to Nathan Eovaldi) eventually put the franchise in a financial position where it felt the need to trade Mookie Betts and David Price to the Los Angeles Dodgers, which obviously played a big role in crowning the most recent World Series champion.MLB Face Masks

When the A’s got to the Coliseum for work — training for the 2020 MLB season amid the coronavirus pandemic — they each found a face mask decorated in the style of Fiers’ classic whiskers. Susan Slusser of the S.F. Chronicle has all the details. Behold:

Which one is the real Mike Fiers? Only the left-handed glove sets them apart. Photo from Oakland A’s Twitter
Sean Manaea (pictured above, if you couldn’t tell) is already considering wearing a mask during his first start this season. Please let it be this one.Pittsburgh Pirates Face Masks

Doolittle: This is personal and speaks to the fact that I'm a walking bag of personality disorders. You've heard the term "fanboy," right? Whatever the opposite of that term is, that's me. If I encounter someone whom I don't know but hold in high esteem, I cannot bring myself to acknowledge that person, no matter what he or she has meant to me as a person, a writer, a baseball journalist, whatever. I have never once in my life asked a person for an autograph. I'm not proud of this.

They can fail, for whatever reason -- bad trades, bad drafts, bad development -- to improve the farm system. But the Phillies improved the farm system a ton. Their system was ranked 29th out of 30 organizations in 2012 (and 20th in 2015) and was a top-five system in 2016, 2017 and 2018. In 2018, when the club was on the brink of competing for the NL East, Philly probably had the second-best farm system in baseball, plus young major leaguers Rhys Hoskins and Aaron Nola, who had both recently graduated from that system.Cleveland Indians Face Masks

Kurkjian: The biggest splash at the winter meetings was made in 2000 in Dallas by the hometown Rangers, with owner Tom Hicks leading the way. The Rangers signed free-agent shortstop Alex Rodriguez to a record contract worth $240 million, twice as much as any team had offered. It was a stunning amount of money back then. Rodriguez's agent, Scott Boras, set up in the hotel lobby, and explained every line of the contract to all who wanted to listen. Rodriguez had three brilliant years in Texas, with a combined OPS of 1.030. He finished sixth, second and first in the MVP balloting. He won two Gold Gloves. But the day of the deal, a member of the Rangers told me, "He's great, but this was a bad signing. We don't have any money left for anyone else." Indeed. The Rangers went 216-270 in Rodriguez's three years, finishing in fourth place each year in the American League West, a combined total of 99 games out of first place. On the final day of the meetings, an ice storm of biblical proportions clobbered the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Was it a sign of things to come?Cincinnati Reds Face Masks