San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Travel will be an issue for team
everywhere possible. Players’ chairs bear their numbers so no one else will sit there, and they’ll now have individual hat boxes so no one else has to touch sweaty caps. Typically, teams have one or two large hatboxes for the entire team. Masks are required — and the league is providing 15,000 per team initially, and if the entire season is played, clubs could go through as many as 40,000.
When position players report Sunday, they will be responsible for their own equipment — batboys can pick up bats only by the barrel, using gloves, so players will have to bring out anything else they need, including doughnut weights for the batting circle, and remove them again when they’re done.
No one will be allowed in the dugout unless strictly necessary and physical distancing rules must still be followed; sunflower seeds won’t be provided, as spitting is forbidden. Catcher Sean Murphy bemoaned the fact players can no longer play cards.
“All of it was weird,” Murphy said after the workout. “The whole thing was weird from the getgo.”
Players will be tested frequently, and if anyone has a fever, they’ll be sent home to quarantine. If anyone is sick at the ballpark, they’ll be isolated in a room until they can be evaluated and potentially quarantined.
“It’s really well thoughtout, really professional,” A’s team physician Dr. Allan Pont said. “Is it going to work? God only knows. But if you’re going to design a good plan, this might be it, but the best plans of mice and men often go astray. There has to be a degree of responsibility by the players that the care they take on the field isn’t destroyed by what they do off the field.”
Will the safety protocols be enough to ensure there is a season? Few around the sport believe that the full slate of 60 games will be played, but Pont is not among the naysayers. “I think it’s a pretty strong possibility we’ll get the season in,” he said. “At the stadium, things are very well controlled. It’s the travel that’s my one fear. You have a lot of people siting on a plane, on a bus, in the elevator.”
Travel secretary Mickey Morabito said the flight crew will be tested frequently and will wear masks, hot meals won’t be served and players will be spaced out around the team plane; only two trips — one to Texas and Houston, one to Texas and Colorado — will require flights longer than 100 minutes. At hotels, teams will stay on low floors so they can avoid elevators, and housekeeping will be by request only.
“Players are being encouraged not to leave the hotel,” Morabito said. “I don’t know how that will work — I am hoping guys will police themselves. But a lot of this is going to be out of our hands. If some states put in shelterinplace orders, you’re going to have to dump this.”
Melvin said he will emphasize in his team meeting Sunday — with players spread out in the stands — that it’s up to them to keep everyone else safe, mentioning atrisk reliever Jake Diekman (ulcerative colitis) in particular. “It’s very important for us to take this seriously,” Melvin said. “It’s only for a few months.”
There is plenty of incentive.
“We have to do the best we can to minimize the virus in our clubhouse,” Melvin said. “Teams that are able to do that and stay healthy will have a leg up on other teams.”
Susan Slusser is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sslusser@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susanslusser
A’s manager Bob Melvin plans to address his team Sunday during its first fullsquad workout day of an unusual summer training camp.
It will be an exercise in logistics — timed to when some players are leaving the Coliseum, others stretching on the field and still others arriving amid the staggered workout times mandated by Major League Baseball as a safety precaution during the coronavirus pandemic.
Players will be spaced out in the stands for the team address, Melvin said, but his message will hit on a shared objective.
“How important it is to try to stay in as much of a bubble as we possibly can,” Melvin said. “It is literally like it is in real life, understanding that you’re doing this for the person next to you, too. You’re staying healthy for not only yourself and your family but your teammates and their families.”
Melvin addressed reporters over video conference Saturday before the A’s held their first series of workouts with catchers and pitchers at the Coliseum. Coaches strode the field wearing masks and carrying fungo bats. Catchers took batting practice in groups of two with only a few people watching from
“If you gave me a game tomorrow, I’d be ready.”
Liam Hendriks, A’s reliever who threw his bullpen session Saturday from the visitors’ bullpen mound.
behind the backstop and pitchers stretched in small cohorts.
Lefthanded A’s reliever Jake Diekman would be part of Melvin’s talk Sunday, the manager said. Diekman is an atrisk player due to ulcerative colitis and having his colon removed and a new one constructed from his small intestine in 2017. But Diekman has voiced his intent to play this season, and Melvin reaffirmed that Diekman “wants to play.”
“His name will come up as well, that it’s very important to take this seriously,” Melvin said.
Field notes: A’s reliever Liam Hendriks threw his bullpen session Saturday from the visitors’ bullpen mound, but that wasn’t totally unfamiliar. In 2013, Hendriks made his first majorleague relief outing for the Twins in a game against the A’s in Oakland.
“Firstever bullpen mound I warmed up on during a game,” Hendriks said. “So, not that abnormal.” Diekman and Hendriks threw bullpens from the visiting mound. Frankie Montas and Chris Bassitt were among pitchers who threw bullpens off the home mound.
Hendriks indicated he won’t need much buildup in camp. He said he strained an oblique about two weeks into quarantine but is recovered, has been throwing bullpens and faced some hitters last week in the Bay Area with “decent results.”
“If you gave me a game tomorrow, I’d be ready,” Hendriks said. Catcher Sean Murphy said he caught bullpens by starters Montas and Sean Manaea and “both looked good . ... They weren’t too far off gameready.” Murphy said he was training in Ohio, where baseball fields were closed, so Saturday marked his first outdoor batting practice since the onset of the pandemic.
“It was nice to get there and see some ball flight,” Murphy said.
Matt Kawahara is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.