Barker, Abernathy OK; former PV High coach Whitsett also affected by pandemic
The COVID-19 virus has swept across the globe, affecting many different professions, including professional athletes.
In Major League Baseball, the season was quickly approaching. Players grinding through minor league camp, some unpaid, are working to earn a permanent spot with a minor league team.
Three minor league baseball players, as well as a coach with roots in Chico, are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic across the nation and are now out of work for the foreseeable future.
Most players have rarely had a break this long away from the game.
“You have to dial back a little bit with your throwing and everything but as far as the working out, it almost ramps back up because you have this opportunity to get even more work in,” said Luke Barker, a Chico State baseball player who graduated in 2015. “And maybe work on things that maybe you weren’t going to have time to work on before. So that’s kind of a blessing in disguise, but it’s just about staying ready.”
Barker, a Pleasant Valley High alumnus in the Milwaukee Brewers organization, was in Phoenix for spring training team when he got the call to come home.
Barker, 28, was coming off
a career year in 2019 when he reached AAA for the first time.
This year he was making his second appearance in Major League camp. Barker finished 2019 with a 1.20 ERA in 17 games pitched and 30 innings for the AAA San Antonio Missions.
In Spring Training with the Brewers, Barker had two wins in two appearances, allowing no hits or runs in 1 1/3 innings pitched before the stoppage. He struck out three of the four batters he faced.
“Once it all settles down and everyone is healthy again, which is most important, then things will line back up and I’ll have opportunities, so I’m not super discouraged,” Barker said. “More just happy with the opportunity that I was able to get before it got canceled.”
Samson Abernathy, a PV graduate and former standout with the Chico Nuts and Chico Heat, was in minor league camp in Florida with the Pittsburgh Pirates when he learned spring training had abruptly ended.
Abernathy plead for his chance to stay in minor league camp. Some players were sent home with the exception of players rehabbing, Pacific Rim, Asian and Venezuelan players whose governments were having problems back home.
The Pirates let him stick around.
But on Monday Abernathy learned that players from Asia, Venezuela and those recovering from serious injuries were the only ones that were going to be allowed to stay at the Pirates’ facilities in Bradenton.
Now Abernathy is back in Chico, where he is thankful to have a facility to work out at as well as a fellow minor league outfielder, Colin Barber,
to throw against. Barber, a 2018 Pleasant Valley graduate, was a fourthround draft pick by the Houston Astros.
“Guys will be struggling, especially athletes having this time off most of them have never had at their level. So stay positive, stay focused on your training,” Abernathy emphasized. “Don’t slack off on your training just because you think everything’s going to be a disaster.”
Abernathy will practice yoga over the break about 4 to 5 days a week and said he hopes it will put him ahead of his competitors.
“I did a lot of just heavy weight lifting, trying to get strong over the break. Coming in and doing our physicals, I found out I had a little less mobility in my hips and shoulders as I would
like too,” Abernathy said.
Abernathy, 23, was in his first year since being drafted from the University of Pacific in Stockton and made 17 appearances in 2019, allowing 10 earned runs in 25 innings to accrue a 2.52 ERA.
Former Pleasant Valley baseball coach Thomas Whitsett (2016-18), now a pitching coach in the Houston Astros organization, flew back home from Astros camp in Florida.
For Whitsett, the timing comes as a blessing.
While still keeping in contact with his pitchers regularly, he now gets to spend time with his pregnant wife who is expecting in May, as well as possibly take a rare spring fishing trip in his home of northern California.
“I have been in touch with a lot of players that I had in Orland and at PV,” Whitsett said. “This game is a fraternity and there is a special bond that is formed when guys take the field together and go to battle.”
“This game is a fraternity and there is a special bond that is formed when guys take the field together and go to battle.”
Contact reporter Justin Couchot at 530-896-7720.