One year after COVID-19 stopped spring training, Marlins reflect as MLB eyes normalcy
Kim Ng, then serving as MLB’s senior vice president of baseball operations, was in her Arizona hotel room March 11, 2020, while working for a World Baseball Classic qualifier when she saw the new flash across the ESPN screen.
The Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. The NBA season had been suspended.
“I just said to myself, ‘Wow. This is big,’” said Ng, now the Miami Marlins’ general manager. “I knew from there we were in trouble.”
One day later, the rest of the North American sports world suffered the same fate. Within a span of hours, the NHL and MLB shuttered operations indefinitely. The NCAA canceled its March Madness basketball tournament.
The Marlins were in the seventh inning of a spring training game when MLB made its decision to suspend spring training and delay Opening Day for the 2020 season. Originally, the plan was to push the season back two weeks. It turned out to be four months. The eventual season was reduced from 162 games to 60.
“Everybody had a weird mind set going into that game,” said outfielder Corey Dickerson, one of eight players still part of the Marlins organization who played in that final spring training game last season. “When we came back and they said they’re shutting it all down, it was kind of like we’re getting a break ... but we didn’t realize what it was going to turn into.”
One year later, one shortened season with masks and safety protocols and empty stadiums later, the Marlins and MLB are starting to see their return to normalcy.
They’re back at their spring training site. Back playing spring training games. Back preparing for what is set to be a full 162-game season.
“I think for the most part,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said, “it does feel normal. ...”
But as normal as everything looks, things are still far from normal. Precautions are seen on a daily basis as the Marlins’ spring training home at the Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium complex in Jupiter.
And the Marlins aren’t taking anything for granted after experiencing the impacts of COVID-19 first-hand.
The Marlins were the first team to deal with a severe coronavirus outbreak, with 18 players and two coaches testing positive after their season-opening weekend at the Philadelphia Phillies. Their season was put on hold for a week, which caused their already condensed schedule to become packed with doubleheaders in order for them to play all 60 games. They made 174 roster moves and saw a franchise-record 18 who made their MLB debuts.
“It was very difficult,” said relief pitcher Yimi Garcia, one of the Marlins players who tested positive. “I was locked down for almost a whole month. I was inside the room watching the team playing. Of course, I wanted to be there helping my team, and I couldn’t.”
Even with that, the Marlins went 31-29 during the regular season and reached the playoffs — albeit in an expanded format — for the first time since 2003 and won a best-of-3 wild card series against the Chicago Cubs before losing in the National League Division Series to the Atlanta Braves.
As the season expands back to 162 games, and the playoffs contact back to 10 teams, the Marlins want to prove last season’s success wasn’t a fluke.
“It’s going to be a full season,” Marlins shortstop and de-facto captain Miguel Rojas said, “so let’s see what we are made of.”
But they also know they are still at the mercy of the virus and that its impact far supersedes the sport. Florida alone has recorded a known total of 1,962,651 coronavirus cases and 32,639 total deaths related to the virus.
“That was a difficult time period for a lot of people in America,” Marlins outfielder Monte Harrison said, “and it’s going to continue to grow as long as this virus is around.”
The virus is still around, but between vaccinations and lowering positivity rates, baseball is at a point where the season will have a familiar look even though things are still not 100 percent back to a pre-coronavirus state.
Fans will be back in the stands this year but in limited capacities to start. The Marlins, for example, plan to cap attendance at Marlins Park at about 25 percent. Spring training games in Jupiter have been limited to about 20 percent capacity.
Health and safety protocols are still around. Players are still being tested for COVID-19 every other day. Kinexon contact-tracing devices are being worn by players, coaches and other members of MLB teams in club facilities, while traveling with the team and during team activities.
A league-wide code of conduct bans “high-risk” activities, including indoor gatherings of more than 10 people.
Anything to return to some sense of normalcy as Opening Day approaches.
“At the end of the day,” Harrison said, “we’re back to playing baseball. We’re back to doing what we do. There’s no better feeling.”
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