This year, it’s a whole new ball game
Even in an empty Rogers Centre, the shortstop insists everything still feels the same
Bo Bichette grins after hitting a home run in the Blue Jays’ first day of summer training camp at the Rogers Centre on Thursday. With no fans to cheer, and players bound by strict public health rules, it was a strange start. Still, as Bichette said, “it’s baseball.”
Play … er … pretend ball! In the weird hush of the ballpark on a summer’s eve. One step above a sim game and one step below a Grapefruit League game.
Make that a Jackfruit League game, why not. A league entirely of their own because the Toronto Blue Jays won’t be seeing any other team for the fortnight balance of this bizarro summer training camp. An intrasquad game at Rogers Centre is as good as it gets, after which the fly-home-come-lately gang might be forced to get the hell out of town.
They are the baseball indigent, sheltering in place at their home ballpark and yoked hotel, a skip and a hop from their four clubhouses, a short stroll from the reopened King Street East patios they’re not allowed to frequent. Don’t even think about it.
“As of now, we are definitely not allowed to leave,” Bo Bichette, as lusciously-coiffed as we remember from days of March yore, said during a Zoomie thingy with reporters shortly before the Jays played the Jays on Thursday evening. “I don’t think anybody is wanting to either.”
Good Lord, what are young ballers coming to these days, compliantly walking the bubble walk and talking the bubble talk. Entirely trustworthy. Though, of course, if the likes of Bo or Vladdy were to take a ramble, somebody would no doubt take a cellphone video.
The young studs already live inside a bubble of celebrity.
And Bichette, well, for all the youthful flamboyance, he’s got an old soul. Which is why, according to manager Charlie Montoyo and teammates, the 22-year-old has very much set the tone around the club in what is only the epilogue to his sophomore Major League Baseball season. “Bo, for sure,” catcher Danny Jansen said the other day, asked whether anybody had stepped up as a leader during these twitchy pandemic times. “Even via text during the time we had off. He’s an opinionated voice. He’s a guy that’s going to be the leader.”
Bichette shrugged off the encomiums modestly.
“I’m not going to take credit for that. I’ve always said, for me, taking care of myself first, doing my work, making sure I’m ready, making sure that when I come back after a three-month layoff that my teammates know that I’ve put in the work and that I’m ready to go. I think they saw that.”
Bichette had a couple of players quarantining with him in Florida, before and after the Dunedin complex was shuttered because of COVID-19 positivity.
“I’m not going to take credit for anybody staying in shape,” Bichette continued. “I think they all have their own motivation. They all did a great job.”
Hard to say definitively, from the gerrymandered secondlevel press box, but the players do indeed look season-fit, at least physically, right down to that dreadlocked fellow at third base. Honestly, four months since last clapping eyes on this outfit and one almost needs a who’s-who scorecard to keep the lineup straight. Hey, who’s that guy in right field? Riley Adams. The minorleague catcher? Yup. What’s he doing playing right field? More to the point, where’s Randal Grichuk?
Not a sighting of Handsome Randy anywhere. Ditto Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Cavan Biggio. And with the Jays trying to fill out two rosters in their first intrasquad contest of Training Camp 2.0 — bullpen coach Matt Buschmann took a spin in left and centre field, if my binocs don’t fail me — it seemed heavily suggestive that those players were among the rump squad left behind in Dunedin, Fla., as casualties of the most recent coronavirus outbreak in COVID-ravaged Florida.
The Jays won’t say who has tested positive and who has been held back because they were in close contact with those who tested positive. All will need two negative tests before they can haul charter-flight butt north to Canada.
So, there were peculiarities galore on this humid evening under the unmasked roof. Players on the field — and most of those in the dugout, from what we could see, which wasn’t much — did not cover their faces, because that would be silly. And, while the whole mask squabble has become tedious, it should be noted that a clutch of pitchers watching from the 400 Level, including Jordan Romano, Sean ReidFoley and yummy prospect Nate Pearson, were properly shrouded.
And, boy, did their hollers ever carry when they collectively tried to verbally yank back a jack off the bat of Rowdy Tellez, off a … fastball? … from Matt Shoemaker, the second time he was taken yard on the night. That was nowhere near as significant as the fact the Shoe went five innings in his first start since mid-March, throwing 66 pitches, with four strikeouts.
But it’s a pitching fraternity and the spectatin’ arms up yonder were not about to give Tellez a miniwave for his longball effort.
Oddities all around on this night, with the ranked tiers of empty seats and the silence so heavy you could hear the players talking to each other and the occasional blast of walk-up music assaulting the eardrums because the team was trying real hard to mimic the sound and feel of a real game, although the advertised announcement for players as they came to bat was a noshow, no-hear.
“We’re going to make it as close to a real game as we can do,” Montoyo had declared earlier.
This will take a whole lot of getting used to, for those of us who have the privilege of actually attending the ballpark and for fans watching at home, when the real 60-game sprint of a season launches on July 24 for the Jays in Tampa. That is where the team might have to hang its jock straps, roadhobos and home-ousted, should the feds not allow crossborder flying for the team and visiting clubs, a government decision still pending.
Still, as Bichette said, “it’s baseball.” And the players are clearly thrilled to be back at it, squaring up in the batter’s box, running the bases, leaping into the hole at short, the thwack of the pitch in the catcher’s glove resonating throughout the park, the clatter of bats.
It’s their normal, even if profoundly abnormal.
“Feels the same,” Bichette insisted. “I mean, we’re out there taking ground balls, taking BP. It feels different because it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be fans there. It’s going to be a short season obviously so a lot more teams are in the hunt. We definitely have a better chance.”
Which is the song Bichette was singing four months ago, in chorus with his teammates, who genuinely believe they can be competitive this season, surprise some people, the chances of doing so purportedly increasing exponentially with a decreasing season. “There’s a lot of optimism in this clubhouse,” said Bichette, “a lot of confidence.”
Sure, they may get their ears pinned back and quickly too out of the chute, but an early stumble could be fatal for any team, including the powerhouses. No home crowd cheers to boost their spirits either.
“When the season starts we’re going to have to learn how to create our own adrenalin,” Bichette said. “I guess we’re kind of practising that now. There’s not a whole lot of adrenalin when you’re facing your own teammates.”
Bichette stroked Toronto’s first summer training camp hummer-homer, by the way. Off the Shoe.
Then they all moseyed back — in spaced groups — to their ballpark foothold hotel rooms.