On Friday night Cincinnati Reds President of Baseball Operations Dick Williams spoke with the media via a conference call about the organization’s plans in the short term.
As reported earlier in the day, the players are allowed to head back home, or to remain in the area of their spring training facilities if they so choose. The Reds big league team was split as to who would remain in Goodyear and who would head back home.
“Some players said, ‘I’d like to stay here for a while and see how it goes. Some people have said, ‘I’m going to go home, but I don’t know how long I’ll stay there. I may come back,” said Dick Williams. “There will be a lot of people playing it by ear, as you can imagine. I would say less than half of our players are going to remain in Arizona right now (big league camp), and probably a little more than that are going to go home.”
“Our plan will over the next few days, the complex will be closed except for the process of helping minor league players understand and make their next move – their travel logistics,” said Williams. “They (the minor leaguers) are given the option to stay. They are encouraged to go home just because their season is behind ours (MLB), so they’re facing a pretty lengthy delay. But we were working with those guys what their choices are. We do anticipate a significant number of minor league players staying here and continuing in their apartments. We have a minor league presence here almost year round. We’re pretty used to busing them to and from the complex. We’ll figure out what meals will be provided out of the complex and they’ll continue to receive their per diem.”
While there is nothing finalized yet from Major League Baseball, or from the Cincinnati Reds as to how things will play out once everyone has a better idea of when the season could begin, Williams did lay out what he believes the plan would look like.
“Our understanding is that there is going to be a period of downtime and then they are going to closely monitor the health situation and when they decide on a time where they think they can start the season back up. They are going to build in a multi-week time for preparation and it’s my understanding that most likely it would be back out here for all teams, back at their spring training facilities, but that has not been committed to.”
I will state this. We’ve heard this before recently. . .
I don’t know of anyone who has experienced something like this before. So, no one really knows how to respond to it (I do know one thing, you don’t respond to it like I heard one person say, “I think this will be a good thing. It will mean people will be spending more money here and not overseas.” Entirely wrong perspective on this case.). So, what I normally tell people, “I do what I can and hope it helps.” The leaders are going to do what they can and hope it helps.
There is nothing good that comes from this. Nothing at all (unless if you consider trying to bring people with differences closer together). The trick is trying to ease what is going to be bad about all of this.
For the individual, you may consider it this way. . .
We all take “calculated risks” everyday, many risks which we may not even consider. For example, It is a calculated rick, even though we may not consider it, “I am not going to get a ticket today” or “No one is going to run into me today while driving”. These things can still happen. But, we take a calculated risk that they won’t happen.
Well, COVID simply adds to that calculated risk. For instance, if I had a ticket to a rock concert right now that hasn’t been cancelled, I still probably wouldn’t go, trying to stay away from groups of people that big that I don’t need to be around. However, if I want to go golfing, I probably would do that. That’s fairly wide open, lots of social distance.
This is how I’m operating. As for more direct COVID information, I just hope the testing, vaccines, etc. get expedited AND AFFORDABLE as soon as possible. In short, let’s get life back as soon as possible.
As an addendum, from what I know, during the summer months, there’s suppose to be not much of this going around. However, that is the time when these viruses mutate. So, even if we need baseball again, none of this healthcare scare is done. We need to increase funding, person-power, etc., on this ASAP.
A mutation of the virus, is what be scary.
It could also act like many Flu viruses, and peter out when the weather gets warmer.
Looking a China, the peak is over, and things are calming down.
Lets pray, that in a few weeks the worst is behind us.
Stay safe, be care, live your life.