Players get a peek at playing without fans

Baseball players got a sense of what the game will be like without fans in the stands upon returning for workouts last week.

They’re getting a more realistic glimpse this week as teams begin holding scrimmages.

Yes, it’s very strange. “It was surreal . ... just sitting behind the dish at a major league stadium with major league players on the field and no one else there and playing in competition,” Milwaukee Brewers general manager David Stearns said Thursday. “Occasionally, you’ll see that for a small BP when media isn’t around or cameras aren’t around, but it was really weird to see Christian Yelich in the batter’s box in a major league stadium in competition in an empty ballpark.”

Baseball returned for workouts last week after the season was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic during spring training. Teams have started ramping up their workouts in preparation for a 60-game season set to begin July 23.

The season will start without fans in the stands and will likely remain that way for a while as coronavirus hot spots continue to pop up across the country.

“We’ll remember this season, going through it, for a long time because these are very unusual feelings for all of us to experience when we’re watching games like this,” Stearns said. “In terms of the actual game and the way that the game played out, I think it looked like normal baseball.”

The Boston Red Sox will try to make the atmosphere a little closer to normal by experimenting with piped-in noise, like leagues in Taiwan and Korea have done.

“So hopefully it won’t be quite as quiet. It is quiet today,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said. “I think we’re just constantly adjusting to things and trying to figure it out.”

One of the new rules during the pandemic is the prohibition of spitting to prevent the virus from spreading.

Following the rule is not as easy as it sounds. Players have actually been practicing not spitting.

“That’s a big thing for me. I do dip some tobacco. I’ll have to change that up, maybe go to gum more often,” the Marlins’ Garrett Cooper said. “That’s the natural thing for a baseball player to do, spit. That’s what they’ve been doing their whole lives — gum, sunflower seeds, a lot of guys dip tobacco. It’s part of your normal protocol. Maybe it helps people calm down. I’ve caught myself a few times. I start to spit and go, ‘Oh man, I can’t do this now.’ It’s something you’ve got to get used to.”