Baseball:
Coronavirus concerns will make this season unlike any in history of Major League Baseball
Twenty oddities we might see in pandemic-shortened season.
Outfielders will spread out. Infielders also will be spaced across the diamond. The pitcher will be all alone on his mound.
The catcher, however, is in his crouch inches away from the batter and just in front of the umpire.
So, Buster Posey won’t be distancing. Neither will Sean Murphy nor any other A’s catcher. That’s one of the drawbacks with Major League Baseball planning a 60game season during the coronavirus pandemic, but the game will go on.
MLB has gone a long way to take health and safety precautions, providing 113page extensive operations manuals for teams to follow, including regularly testing for the coronavirus and doing temperature/symptom checks.
That’ll be done behind the scenes. Meantime, there will be plenty of differences compared with how the game operated through the generations, and the protocols on which owners and players agreed will be foreign to everyone in the industry.
Here are 20 oddities for 2020:
Remember those pregame exchanges in which someone from each team — a manager, coach or player — delivered his team’s lineup to the umpires at home plate and talked about little more than dinner plans? No more.
It’s mandatory to stand 6 feet apart whenever possible, including during the national anthem and God Bless America.
No fraternizing before games. This would be awkward if Giants prospect Hunter Bishop is called up to the majors for a game against the Mariners, his brother Braden’s team.
Don’t highfive. Don’t fistbump. Don’t Buster hug. Don’t make any physical contact of any kind even if your teammate hits a walkoff home run. The Giants can’t dogpile on a guy between first and second, and the A’s can’t give anyone a Gatorade shower or pie in the face.
Don’t spit. Don’t chew tobacco. Don’t chew or spit sunflower seeds. For many ballplayers, at least one of these rituals is done throughout any given game. But it’s not exactly sanitary in these changing times. Dusty Baker will need to reexamine chewing toothpicks. Chewing gum is allowed, thank goodness.
No brawls, melees or donnybrooks. Those who engage can be disciplined. In fact, no arguments with umpires — Bruce Bochy got out just in time.
Thirdbase coaches Ron Wotus in San Francisco and Al Pedrique in Oakland will need a new set of signs because they no longer can touch their face. Plus, they must stay in or behind the coach’s box and can’t huddle with baserunners.
Pitchers can’t lick their fingers. How in the world is Sergio Romo going to handle this one? Well, pitchers can keep a small wet rag in their back pocket.
Wiping away sweat with a hand should be avoided, perhaps the most unenforceable rule of them all. In today’s game, Gaylord Perry would be out of tricks.
Brandon Belt or Matt Olson just made a heck of a scoop at first base, and the inning’s first batter is retired. But infielders are encouraged not to throw the ball around, another cool tradition that’s being wiped out in 2020.
A ball that’s put in play and touched by multiple defenders — including a basic Brandon Crawford/Marcus Semien throw to first — will be tossed out.
Balls used in pregame or betweeninning warmups must be discarded. To be used again, the ball must be disinfected.
Bring your own doughnuts. Not oldfashioned chocolate. But the kind that adds weight to your bat while swinging in the ondeck circle. No sharing doughnuts. Even glazed. For that matter, bring your own pine tar to the ondeck circle, your own rosin bag to the mound.
If Mike Yastrzemski or Matt Chapman makes the last out in an inning, and if Hunter Pence or Khris Davis is stranded on base when the inning ends, he must return to the dugout to get his own gear. He can’t expect a teammate to bring it onto the field for him. On that front, a simple rule: Just don’t touch anyone else’s stuff, which is good news for rookies who no longer can get hazed by the ol’ hotfoot prank.
Players need to depart the ballpark within 90 minutes after the final pitch, so no more hanging out in the clubhouse, drinking adult beverages and talking ball. Actually, that tradition went away long ago. It’s rare any player stays beyond 90 minutes anyway, give or take an Evan Longoria or Ramon Laureano.
If a player isn’t in the game, he shouldn’t be in the dugout. It’ll be unusual to see players scattered in the first few rows of the stands. The rule is to sit four empty seats (or two empty rows) away from the next player. That’s where tomorrow’s starter, maybe Johnny Cueto or Mike Fiers, would hang out.
Coaches and trainers must wear masks in the dugouts and bullpens. Head groundskeepers Greg Elliott and Clay Wood and their assistants must wear masks while maintaining and dragging the field.
Can’t tip the clubbie unless it’s through PayPal or Venmo. Once upon a time, after a road series, players would give cash to clubhouse managers Mike Murphy and Steve Vucinich and their assistants who fed them and washed their uniforms throughout a series.
There are charts and diagrams showing how players and coaches need to be distanced during infield and outfield drills, cutoff drills, batting practice, bullpen sessions, bunting drills, baserunning drills, PFP (pitcher fielding practice) drills and even team stretches.
No ball dudes or dudettes, as they’re called at Oracle Park, so Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow can’t provide scouting reports on older folks’ baseball skills. Foul balls down the lines will be handled by “existing club staff.”