Baseball teams try to adapt, find safe options on road trips

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gone for now are the days of baseball players, often dirt-stained and still in uniform, gathering in the clubhouse to scarf down a late night meal before heading their separate ways until doing it all again some 24 hours later.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed that cherished time when players could sit together at a table to decompress from a long game, celebrate a hard-fought win or support each other through a tough defeat.

Still, many teams are trying to find smart and creative ways to mingle safely and have some semblance of that close-knit normalcy while paying close attention to season-stalling outbreaks for the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals.

The San Francisco Giants arrived at their team hotel in Denver on Sunday night and discovered what manager Gabe Kapler thought would be an ideal space for planning meetings and players to hang out during the club's current four-game series with the Colorado Rockies.

Then he found something safer.

“We scoped them out indoors initially and we met with the hotel to ensure that those would be places that we could utilize and spread out, and then this morning, we audibled because we found an outdoor area right outside one of those meeting rooms that was especially spread out and gave us an opportunity to do our advance meetings," Kapler said at the start of a 10-game trip that also goes through Los Angeles and Houston.

Road teams have been hit hardest by COVID-19. The Marlins played in Philadelphia and the Cardinals were in Minnesota when the coronavirus began to spread through their rosters, leading to postponements that are wreaking havoc on the shortened 60-game schedule.

“It’s not a normal year, so to keep guys healthy is huge,” Giants right-hander Jeff Samardzija said. “We’re...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Baseball-teams-try-to-adapt-find-safe-options-on-15456423.php