Jays enjoying reunion, but eager to fly north
COVID testing begins at Florida facility as talks with federal officials continue
In these unusual and uncertain times, it was about as close to business as usual as it can get for the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday morning at the team’s Florida headquarters in Dunedin.
Players arrived and shared excitement for the season that awaits (as strange and uncertain as things are). They caught up on life in quarantine, and as much as possible, enjoyed the camaraderie of a COVID -19 clubhouse.
And then there were the tests, assuredly the most unpleasant piece of business of the reunion and an experience that will soon become part of the ball players’ regimen, a task not nearly as enjoyable as the usual routines around the batting cage and bullpen.
No one is getting too settled in at TD Ballpark just yet, however, as it’s still believed the stay at the team’s spring training base will be short-lived.
The Jays are under the impression the team will be on its way north for the bulk of training camp, possibly as soon as Saturday. While there had been hope that flight would have occurred first on Wednesday, and then Friday, it would hardly be a worst-case development, given the lingering uncertainty of where they will be based for the postponed and abbreviated 60-game season.
Officially, the team is still awaiting final clearance from the federal government to head to Toronto, where the team is intent on conducting close to three weeks of training camp under modified quarantine conditions. Though each team is allowed to host as many as three exhibition games, intrasquad contests are another possible means of preparation for the season.
Those around the team are clinging to the belief that a charter will be on its way by the weekend.
With clearance from the feds still delayed, the Jays opted to mobilize in Dunedin to at least get the medical testing for the virus out of the way. TD Ballpark also remains the prime backup plan for the regular season.
Once in Canada, the Jays plan to work under a quarantine environment, staying at the hotel attached to the Rogers Centre and practising on the field below. The stadium’s grounds crew has been working on readying the field this week.
While the team has said little about the developments, Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro has been working behind the scenes with federal, provincial and municipal governments. It’s believed the final issues involve quarantining players from visiting teams once the regular season begins.
With close to a month to work out those details, the Jays are confident they can run a safe, effective and responsible training camp at the Rogers Centre.
“We are all aware of the challenges we are facing,” Shapiro said recently. “We all understand that the task of executing and pulling off Major League Baseball in the backdrop of what we are going through is not going to be an easy one.
“There is a willingness and a desire to face that challenge. We want to have some normalcy where we can have it, and this is one piece of bringing back a positive distraction for baseball fans and sports fans throughout Canada.”
Meanwhile, Canada Day was never supposed to be like this for the Jays, of course. Always a highlight of the team’s home calendar, on the original 2020 schedule a Wednesday matinee was slated as the finale of a threegame series at the Rogers Centre against the Chicago White Sox.
That plan scuttled by the pandemic, it was then supposed to be the report date back in Toronto for players to be tested for COVID-19 and to get settled in for first workouts on Friday, the first day such gatherings are permitted under MLB’S back-towork plans.
We are all aware of the challenges we are facing ... We all understand that the task of executing and pulling off Major League Baseball in the backdrop of what we are going through is not going to be an easy one.
It’s unclear whether the Jays will start workouts in Dunedin and then pick them up when the team returns north. Several teams won’t begin full team training sessions until Saturday as the testing necessitates a quarantine period of up to 48 hours.
If and when the Jays finally make it to Canada, they’ll do so under the assumption they’ll be here for good. It would be pointless, after all, to have training camp here only to return to Dunedin for games.
Meanwhile, like the rest of the league, the Jays await a firm schedule from MLB outlining the abbreviated 60-game campaign that will see Toronto play 40 games against its AL East rivals and the remaining 20 against NL East foes.
The Tampa Bay Times has reported that the Jays will open the season on July 24 against the Rays at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.