An inside look at how the Miami Marlins plan to create their own bubble on road trips
The Miami Marlins, after almost three weeks at Marlins Park, are packing their bags and hitting the road. A new season, albeit one filled with uncertainty as it’s played under the cloud of the coronavirus pandemic, is about to begin.
First stop: Atlanta for two exhibition games against the Braves on Tuesday and Wednesday at Truist Park. After that, it’s four days in Philadelphia for a three-game series against the Phillies that starts Friday at 7:05 p.m.
It also means the first chance to test out the logistics of the league’s new travel policies put in place for this season to limit spread of and exposure to COVID-19.
As professional sports make their return in the United States, most leagues are containing their teams and players in confined areas. Major League Soccer, at least for its opening tournament, and the NBA for the duration of its season are in separate bubbles at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Lake Buena Vista near Orlando. The NHL is playing its postseason in a pair of hub cities. The WNBA is in Bradenton.
Major League Baseball? It’s going on with a season as close to normal as possible. Except for the Toronto Blue Jays (who are in the midst of figuring out where they’re playing home games after the Canadian government denied use of Rogers Centre), every team is playing home games at their home ballparks. Teams will travel, but the schedule is limited to teams only facing opponents in the same geographical divisions. The Marlins are playing 40 games against their National League East opponents and 20 against the American League East.
The Marlins have six road trips this year, starting with this six-day stretch at Atlanta for two exhibition games and then Philadelphia for the three-game series at Citizens Bank Park to officially start the 2020 season.
How will it play out amid COVID-19?
“Probably unknown,” Marlins team medical director Dr. Lee Kaplan said. “I think we’ll have to be very in tune and alert.”
And with that comes new rules and regulations.
Flights with no one in middle seats at a minimum and rows separating players when possible. No leaving the hotel except for travel to and from the ballpark. Doubling and sometimes tripling bus trips to and from the hotel so players avoid ride shares or other forms of public transportation and can adhere to social distancing policies. New protocols that restrict time inside the stadium each day, forcing teams and players to adjust their pregame routines and even do some preparation in the hotel instead of on site.
“This is uncharted waters for everybody,” Marlins director of team travel Manny Colon said. “We’re going through this, but it’s just completely uncharted for us.”
The protocols
A lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make sure this road trip — and all road trips this season — go on without problems.
But that doesn’t mean things will be normal on the road.
A quick summary of the new policies in place, as outlined by the league’s 101-page operations manual, which includes health and safety protocols:
▪ When flying to road cities, all members of the traveling party — which will be 57 or 58 people compared to about 65 in a normal year, according to Colon — must stay seated except for when going to the restroom. In-flight catering services are limited, with a single bag pre-packed with food, drinks, snacks and sanitation wipes provided to everyone. People sitting in the same row can’t eat at the same time.
▪ Buses will be limited to no more than 20 people per trip, meaning the Marlins will have to add extra trips to and from the hotel and ballpark. Colon said there will be anywhere from four to six trips going to the stadium before the game and four buses back to the hotel after the game ends.
▪ Teams are limited to rooms on the first two floors at hotels so that they avoid using elevators. While on the road, they can’t go out to eat (room service and order from services like GrubHub and UberEats is fine) and are only allowed to have immediate family members or members of the team inside their rooms.
▪ Speaking of hotels, they will become more of a home base than ever. With restrictions on how long teams can be in clubhouses (no earlier than five hours before a game and leaving no later than an hour after the game ends), Colon said the team is setting things up so that players do a lot of their pre-game routines — workouts, conditioning, treatment, film — inside the hotel before going to the park.
“We’ll stay in a bubble,” Colon said.
Booking travel
But creating that bubble, at least for Colon and assistant general manager Brian Chattin, started well before the team embarks on its first flight of the season.
In a normal season, one with 162 games games and no global pandemic to worry about, Colon said he normally has hotels booked or at least is in contact with the hotels the team will be staying at almost a year in advance.
The postponed season and complete overhaul of the schedule forced Colon and Chattin to be quick on their feet with booking travel. Colon got in touch with hotels in the cities the Marlins could have been traveling to toward the end of the layoff when the regionalized format became finalized and then followed up once the schedule became official and they had exact dates to work around.
“There wasn’t a lot of time before we were starting the season,” Chattin said, “so considerable work has been done to overhaul our plans for where we were going and when we were going compared to the first regular season schedule that we had.”
“You’re basically on the fly,” Colon added. “You’re just rolling with what you have.”
There is still work to be done. The Marlins were originally supposed to travel to Toronto to face the Blue Jays on Aug. 11 and 12. Now, they’re in a holding pattern as the Blue Jays work to figure out where they’ll play their home games.
“Our focus right now is on our first road trip, making sure it goes off as seamless as we can,” Chattin said. “We’ll address our Toronto trip at the appropriate time when more information comes out on that.”
‘It’s going to be different’
Shortstop Miguel Rojas said most of the regulations won’t be too tough to deal with. Outside of the rare off days in a road city (like they’ll have Thursday in Philadelphia), most players tend to stay at the hotel during trips anyway.
The adjustments come on a smaller level.
“We used to spend a lot of time in the clubhouse,” Rojas said. “That’s where you create a bond with the other players.”
Those conversations, at least for road games, will now be in a communal room in the hotel — most likely a conference room or lounge — that will serve as a dining area.
“It’s going to be different for sure,” Rojas said, “but who knows? Maybe we’re going to continue to do this kind of stuff int he future because it’s probably better for us. We don’t know until we try.”
Their first chance to try it out is on Tuesday.
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 12:19 PM.
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