Another day without baseball. And now, there’s not even players in Jupiter to give us hope that things might be resolved quickly.
There are a few of them staying, of course. Kwang-Hwan Kim, of course. Even if the travel didn’t rule out going home, the fact that the virus is even more prevalent in his native land would keep him here. Which has to be incredibly tough for him. Earlier in the spring, he talked about worrying about his family as they were in the middle of where the virus was strong. At least then, he had baseball to keep his mind off of things. Preparing for games, playing games. Now, not so much. And while I’m sure he will FaceTime or Skype or however he can communicate with them visually, it’s not the same as being there.
What does Kolten Wong do, I wonder? It would seem that the delay is going to be enough for him to go home to Hawaii, but I could also see him going to St. Louis instead, staying in touch with his teammates and his community while being ready whenever the word comes to head back down to Florida.
That seems to be what’s going to happen. John Mozeliak called it “Camp 2” when talking to the media and it seems that at some point in time the players will gather back in Florida to start ramping up for the season. How that will work, how any of this will work, still is up in the air.
With MLB sending players home, though, it seems like we are in for the long haul. The Cardinals can talk about MLB still wanting to get all 162 games in, but how reasonable is that if it is May 1, May 15, later when things resume? It really sounds like it’s going to be longer than the month that they were hoping for with the shutdown.
For now, though, most of those players can spend time with their family. It’s an unexpected gift and they’d rather have the time in a different way, but being able to spend time with them before the season, however long it will be, is a blessing. They can be there as they deal with quarantines or other roadblocks. They can feel useful, not useless.
Then, at some point, they’ll head to their baseball home. We’ll just have to see when that will be.