#Small tweaks to improve MLB’s ‘robust’ coronavirus testing plan

Let’s recognize the easiest part of regularly testing baseball players for the coronavirus.

“Who better than a baseball player to spit into a cup?” mused Dr. Lawrence Leigh, a radiologist based in Florida. “It’s readily available, and they’re used to doing it.”

Dr. Leigh and his brother Russell are the co-founders of One Milo, a Florida-based medical technology company that has focused its recent efforts on a rapid, finger-prick antibody test for COVID-19. So they know their stuff when it comes to managing this pandemic, and they offered an encouraging review of Major League Baseball’s plan for a restart in these dangerous times.

“When I read the testing protocol, I thought it was very robust and well thought-out,” Dr. Leigh said. “I don’t think many infections will fall through the cracks.”

“I was surprised how rigorous it was,” Russell Leigh added. “MLB is really going above and beyond.”

Starting when they arrive at their teams’ facilities this week, players will get tested every other day via either a nasal swab or saliva; if you’ve gotten the nasal swab, you know how intrusive and unnerving a process that can be, so saliva figures to be the standard, all the more so since the ballplayers — so accustomed to spitting, as Dr. Leigh noted — won’t be permitted to hock any loogies on the field. They will undergo antibody testing approximately once a month, as per MLB’s Operations Manual.

The Leigh brothers offered two suggestions to turn, let’s say, a grade-A plan into an A-plus:

Strive to test as many family members (of players, managers, coaches, etc.) for antibodies as possible. Said Russell Leigh: “I think there would be a great public benefit for MLB to do a poll of their entire population….It would be good to know, ‘What does the MLB population look like?’”

Testing players for antibodies once a week rather than once a month, to provide a check and balance in case the diagnostic/PCR tests (saliva or nasal swab) don’t pick up an asymptomatic carrier. “Conversion from negative to positive (on the antibody test) would indicate a recent infection,” Dr. Leigh said, and if you notice that change within a week’s time as the player has tested negative for the disease, then you have a better chance at minimizing the potential spread.

Obviously the Leigh brothers believe strongly in the antibody testing; they’ve invested in it. Yet their overall credentials speak for themselves. And as MLB attempts this high-risk venture, it must remain open to suggestions from anyone and everyone on how to thread the needle and make this work.

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–This week’s Pop Quiz question came from Jay Berman of Coral Springs, Fla.: Name the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner who co-starred with legendary football player Jim Brown in the 1972 film “Black Gunn.”

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—The CUSP Show podcast, produced by Columbia University, features intelligent conversations with great guests like Angels manager Joe Maddon, who shares his love of The Post’s baseball coverage. (That’s right, butter me up and you’ll get a plug.)

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–Your Pop Quiz answer is Vida Blue. If you have a tidbit that connects baseball to popular culture, please send it to me at [email protected].