Baseball is coming back

Posted: June 24, 2020 | Author: Precious Sanders | Filed under: 21st Century | Tags: Baseball, COVID-19, Major League Baseball, MLB, Opening Day, pandemic, Philadelphia Phillies, sports, Spring Training, World Series | 2 Comments

Players, owners, teams, the league… all the moving parts of the MLB universe have finally come together, and we are, at last, going to see some baseball for the 2020 season!

Major League Baseball is having a second Spring Training (or should we call it “Summer Training” at this point?) to begin in about a week’s time, on July 1st. Then, we will be looking at a 60-game regular season, to be played over the course of about 66 days, from about July 23rd or 24th until September 27th. The postseason will begin on September 29th, with the World Series to begin on October 20th, and a potential Game 7 to be played on October 28th.

With the COVID-19 pandemic still in full swing, access to games is going to be limited, of course. No fans in the stands is going to seem a bit weird, but so long as we can watch games from the comfort of our living rooms, that seems like a minor concession at this point. There will be a regimen of temperature checks and symptom checks, as well routine tests for the virus, not just among players, but also coaches, trainers, staff, etc. Players who are high-risk or who have family members at high risk have the option to opt out for the season and still get paid. Media interactions with the teams, meanwhile, will all take place through Zoom, in order to adhere to social distancing recommendations.

On the field, spitting will be banned, which makes perfect sense given the nature of how the virus spreads. Non-playing players in the dugout will be required to wear masks. Pitchers will bring their own rosin bags and will even be permitted to carry a wet rag in their back pocket so they won’t need to lick their fingers (does anyone else sniff a potential for some doctoring on this one?). Social distancing, in general, remains strongly encouraged.

How well will this all work? Obviously, it’s difficult to tell until things really get underway. The potential for a widespread outbreak remains very real — just look at what happened among the Phillies last week — and for all we know, the season might end abruptly after the first thirty days.

Information about this new development is still coming, even as I write this. This strange, strange season just keeps getting stranger, and while I’m happy that we’re going to see some ballgames, half of me is intensely curious about how long it’s really going to last.

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“The Idea of Florida During a Winter Thaw,” by Gail Mazur

Posted: May 21, 2020 | Author: Precious Sanders | Filed under: Pop culture | Tags: Baseball, coronavirus, COVID-19, Gail Mazur, poetry, sports, Spring Training | 2 Comments

This piece makes me want to go back in time a few months — back to the last days of winter as Spring Training was just getting underway and the threat of the coronavirus still seemed too far away to be of any concern.

*sigh*

We’ll get it back next year.

Late February, and the air’s so balmy
snowdrops and crocuses might be fooled
into early blooming. Then, the inevitable blizzard
will come, blighting our harbingers of spring,
and the numbed yards will go back undercover.
In Florida, it’s strawberry season—
shortcake, waffles, berries and cream
will be penciled on the coffeeshop menus.

In Winter Haven, the ballplayers are stretching
and preening, dancing on the basepaths,
giddy as good kids playing hookey. Now,
for a few weeks, statistics won’t seem
to matter, for the flushed boys are muscular
and chaste, lovely as lakes to the retired men
watching calisthenics from the grandstands.
Escapees from the cold work of living,

the old men burnish stories of Yaz and the Babe
and the Splendid Splinter. For a few dreamy dollars,
they sit with their wives all day in the sun,
on their own little seat cushions, wearing soft caps
with visors. Their brave recreational vehicles
grow hot in the parking lot, though they’re
shaded by live oaks and bottlebrush trees
whose soft bristles graze the top-racks.

At four, the spectators leave in pairs, off
to restaurants for Early Bird Specials.
A salamander scuttles across the quiet
visitors’ dugout. The osprey whose nest is atop
the foul pole relaxes. She’s raged all afternoon
at balls hit again and again toward her offspring.
Although December’s frost killed the winter crop,
there’s a pulpy orange-y smell from juice factories….

Down the road, at Cypress Gardens, a woman
trainer flips young alligators over on their backs,
demonstrating their talent for comedy—stroke
their bellies, they’re out cold, instantaneously
snoozing. A schoolgirl on vacation gapes,
wonders if she’d ever be brave enough
to try that, to hold a terrifying beast
and turn it into something cartoon-funny.

She stretches a hand toward the toothy sleeper
then takes a step back, to be safe as she reaches.

“Spring Training,” by Lynn Rigney Schott

Posted: April 22, 2020 | Author: Precious Sanders | Filed under: 20th Century, Pop culture | Tags: Baseball, Bill Rigney, California Angels, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Lynn Rigney Schott, Major League Baseball, Minnesota Twins, MLB, New York Giants, poetry, San Francisco Giants, sports, Spring Training | 1 Comment

I’m still holding out hope that Spring Training won’t be the only baseball we get this year. In the meantime, we look for other ways to stay engaged with baseball. This piece by Lynn Rigney Schott was first published in The New Yorker on March 26, 1984. The author’s father, Bill Rigney, had played Major League Baseball with the New York Giants from 1946 to 1953. He then went on to serve as the manager for the Giants, making him their last manager in New York as well as the team’s first manager when they moved to San Francisco. Rigney would also manage the Los Angeles/California Angels and the Minnesota Twins.

The last of the birds has returned —
the bluebird, shy and flashy.
The bees carry fat baskets of pollen
from the alders around the pond.
The wasps in the attic venture downstairs,
where they congregate on warm windowpanes.
Every few days it rains.

This is my thirty-fifth spring;
still I am a novice at my work,
confused and frightened and angry.
Unlike me, the buds do not hesitate,
the hills are confident they will be
perfectly reflected
in the glass of the river.

I oiled my glove yesterday.
Half the season is over.
When will I be ready?

On my desk sits a black-and-white postcard picture
of my father — skinny, determined,
in a New York Giants uniform —
ears protruding, eyes riveted.
Handsome, single-minded, he looks ready.

Thirty-five years of warmups.
Like glancing down at the scorecard
in your lap for half a second
and when you look up it’s done —
a long fly ball, moonlike,
into the night
over the fence,
way out of reach.

Bill Rigney, 1953 (Wikipedia)

This day in baseball: Spring training attendance record at Joe Robbie

Posted: March 30, 2020 | Author: Precious Sanders | Filed under: 20th Century, This day in baseball | Tags: Baltimore Orioles, Baseball, Florida Marlins, Hard Rock Stadium, Joe Robbie Stadium, Major League Baseball, MLB, New York Yankees, sports, Spring Training | 4 Comments

An exhibition game held on March 30, 1991 at Joe Robbie Stadium (now known as Hard Rock Stadium) featured the New York Yankees versus the Baltimore Orioles. The contest drew a crowd of 67,654 fans, which, at that time, set a spring training attendance record. South Florida fans came out due in part to their eagerness to draw an expansion team to the area. You can find the Baltimore Sun‘s coverage of the event here.

The Florida Marlins would begin playing at Joe Robbie Stadium in 1993.

Hard Rock Stadium (stadiumsofprofootball.com)

MLB suspending operations

Posted: March 12, 2020 | Author: Precious Sanders | Filed under: 21st Century | Tags: Baseball, coronavirus, COVID-19, Major League Baseball, MLB, Opening Day, pandemic, sports, Spring Training | 2 Comments

This just in: Major League Baseball has announced that they are canceling the remainder of Spring Training. The start of the 2020 regular season is also being pushed back.

Thanks a lot, COVID-19.

Major League Baseball is reportedly joining the NBA in suspending all operations due to the coronavirus outbreak https://t.co/rBHcAMlfEX

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) March 12, 2020