Yankees broadcaster rips Texas Rangers' decision to allow 100% stadium capacity on opening day

• The Texas Rangers are set to allow 100% stadium capacity on opening day of the MLB season.
• The Rangers will be the first major sports team to have full capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• WFAN New York Yankees brodcaster Suzyn Waldman called the decision stupid on Thursday.

The Texas Rangers will be the first major American sports team to allow 100% stadium capacity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The announcement came one week after Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced he was rescinding the state's mask mandate and opening Texas "100%." However, the Rangers will require fans to wear masks to all games and have instituted a three-strike policy for those who do not abide.

"We're not going to have the social distance seats available for Opening Day because we made a commitment to everybody [season ticket holders] that they could hold tickets if we would allow them for the proper Opening Day," Rangers executive vice president and chief revenue and marketing officer Joe Januszewski told MLB.com. "We're going to honor that, so to do that, obviously, we would be at a full capacity."

The decision has drawn criticism for disregarding social distancing amid the ongoing pandemic, including from WFAN's long-time New York Yankees broadcaster Suzyn Waldman.

During a Yankees spring training game on Wednesday, Waldman was informed by fellow Yankees broadcaster John Sterling that The Rangers would allow full capacity on opening day and responded by saying she was glad she won't be there and called the decision "stupid."

Waldman is 74 and was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996. She has been in remission for several years and has worked as a broadcaster through her illness. However, she is still a high-risk individual in terms of contracting COVID-19 due to her age and condition, according to the CDC.

The COVID-19 pandemic could still very well be a prevalent issue in Texas by April 5, as the state currently ranks 47 out of 50 in percent of the population that's received at least one dose of a vaccine, according to CBS News, and more than 45,500 people in the state have died since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.