Giants’ open practice: A whole lot of nothing
SAN FRANCISCO >> I expected a happy day Friday when I went to Oracle Park to see the Giants take the field for the first preseason practice of their new season. I thought it was going to be like the first day of school.
Instead, it felt like the first day in a minimum-security prison. The only emotion I felt was melancholy. Truth be told, by the end of it, I couldn’t wait to leave.
Yes, baseball is back — another bit of our normal pre-COVID lives has returned — and that should be celebrated. But, not surprisingly, things have dramatically changed since baseball shut down spring training camps in March.
What’s going on in ballparks around the country right now isn’t normal, it’s just an adaptation to the trying circumstances of the day. My hope is that things improve so this doesn’t become the only normal we remember.
Don’t get me wrong, I commend the Giants organization for their efforts to keep everyone at Oracle Park as safe as possible Friday. Their jobs, top to bottom, are not easy right now. But the only juxtaposition I was drawing in my mind was between the world before and after COVID-19, and it’s impossible for your mind to go there and not end up frustrated.
As for the logistics of this “new normal,” I wish I could provide a more behind-the-scenes look at how the players and coaches are handling it, but the media is no longer allowed behind the scenes. So in lieu of the good stuff, let me tell you how my day went. By the end, I hope you’ll feel that the only thing you’re missing by not being allowed at games this year is a hassle.
Entering the ballpark, after the bag check (now behind a plastic shield!), a metal detector scan and a squirt of hand sanitizer, I walked to the press box. There, I set up shop at a desk lined with tape (another marker for distancing) and watched a bunch of coaches and players on the field … stand around and talk. Some were 6 feet apart. Others were not. Generally, everyone was wearing a mask, like me.
At one point, Giants veterans Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt ran around the perimeter of the in
field. This was the highlight of the day’s “action.” Sadly, I can’t say if their gait looked regular-season ready. Some pitchers also long-tossed in the outfield. I didn’t bring a radar gun, so I can’t tell you if anyone was bringing the gradeA heat.
Also, no one was wearing a number Friday, so a roster that is roughly 50% anonymous under normal circumstances was roughly 95% anonymous for the first workout of the year.
(All this, while the pop hits of the last five years were blasted throughout the park at levels no one wanted. That Taylor Swift song “Look What You Made Me Do” really is terrible.)
I wish Friday had been more interesting, but it wasn’t. It was the perfunctory amount of nothing you see during spring training or in the hours before the gates open before a game.
The only difference was all of the added protocols necessary for me to witness it firsthand. Protocols that are so arduous (though for good reason), it’s impossible to imagine a circumstance where fans are allowed into the ballpark anytime soon. Yes, it might be fun to watch a game under the summer sun with a beer in hand, but if this is what’s required to make that happen, you’re better off having that beer on your couch.
The frustrating part isn’t all the guidelines that must be adhered to or having to wear a mask all day — it’s that I can’t tell you more. A big part of my job is taking readers behind the curtain, but there are so many more curtains now and the media isn’t allowed behind any of them.
For instance, before the pandemic, a baseball clubhouse was a free-for-all — the unwashed media horde would huddle in the middle of the room and one-by-one pick off players at their lockers on the perimeter.
The clubhouse is now a scheduled Zoom call. Yes, the media, sitting more than 6 feet apart in the press box, called into a videoconference with a player who was probably only a long-toss away inside the same ballpark.
And on Friday, we were kicked out of the ballpark before Giants manager Gabe Kapler jumped on Zoom to talk.
I joined that call from a field that’s not manicured quite as well as Oracle Park — a place where I imagine I’ll be spending a lot of time covering the Giants this season: my backyard.