Scenes from a day at Cleveland Indians training camp
By Zack Meisel Jul 6, 2020 15
CLEVELAND — During batting practice on Monday morning, Francisco Lindor told Terry Francona he needed to sanitize his hands.
Lindor handed his manager a bottle, and Francona started to spray. One problem: Lindor didn’t give him hand sanitizer; he supplied him with pine tar.
“Next thing you know,” Lindor said, “he realized his hands were getting more and more sticky. He gave that good, ‘Awww, shit.’”
Francona spent the rest of the morning attempting to remove the residue with rubbing alcohol and tape remover and any other substance he could locate.
“We almost wanted to release him,” Francona joked.
Aside from Delino DeShields, who’s still in Arizona recovering from COVID-19, the Indians have their full squad in Cleveland. On Monday, a limited number of reporters were granted access to Progressive Field for the first time. Here’s a sampling of scenes from the ballpark.
• The media entrance has evolved into a one-stop shop for security clearance, credentialing and wellness checks. To be permitted to enter, reporters must answer a symptoms questionnaire. Any difficulty breathing? Muscle soreness? Fever? Cough? Have you been around anyone dealing with those conditions?
Then, a temperature check, via a green laser that zaps the forehead. (I measured 97.7 degrees, not that anyone was wondering.)
A small bottle of hand sanitizer was waiting at each seat in the press box. The press box can accommodate upwards of 150 people — it was briefly the largest in the league in the mid-‘90s — but the 2020 guidelines allow for only 24 reporters in the room per day. Each assigned seat is followed by five or six empty spots to maintain social distancing.
Reporters must wear masks at all times and are restricted to the press box, the left-field porch, one section in the lower level and a couple of sections in the upper deck.
There is a white dry-erase board in the press box that features the daily lineups for both sides. Though the marker has faded a bit, it still displays the batting orders from the Indians’ final home game of 2019. Oh, to return to simpler times, when Mike Freeman batted fifth and Ryan Flaherty hit ninth. César Hernández, now the Indians’ second baseman, led off for the Phillies.
• The Indians have been splitting their daily routine into two sessions. A group of position players trained in the morning, going through infield work and batting practice. Third-base coach Mike Sarbaugh threw to Francisco Lindor (whose hair remains blue), José Ramírez, Carlos Santana, Oscar Mercado and a handful of others.
The team keeps five green folding chairs, all spread out, behind a giant net that sits behind home plate. Francona and the hitters who are waiting their turns can watch and talk (while wearing masks). Ramírez belted one baseball onto the Gateway Plaza, which used to be reserved for Mike Napoli’s bursts of power.
Roberto Pérez launched a couple of pitches into the empty left-field bleacher seats, which provided that familiar, jarring clang heard during batting practice sessions in a typical summer.
At about 11:15 a.m., players cleared out and masked grounds crew members tended to the field, watering and raking the infield dirt. The next group took the field at about 1:40 p.m.
• Employees have taken on atypical job responsibilities. A member of the ballpark operations team directed media members to stand on social distancing stickers as we lined up outside the entrance gate. A media relations staffer wiped down the seat, table and microphone between Zoom calls in the club’s interview room.
Adam Plutko kicked off an hour and a half of Zoom interviews with reporters. He’s expected to record a four-inning session (about 65 pitches) on Wednesday. That’s in line with how far Plutko stretched out during quarantine, though his training didn’t come without challenges. Before settling on a facility in Dallas, he tried to throw at a deserted high school field, but a security guard gave him the boot. Then, the net he was using busted, so he had to wait a few days until a new one arrived. Those are minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things, of course. And it’s much different being back at the ballpark.
“I watched Francisco Lindor field groundballs today,” Plutko said, “and it was just mesmerizing to see it again. I’m just glad to be here.”
(Zack Meisel / The Athletic)
• Terry Francona followed Plutko on the Zoom train. Francona said Sunday he was glad the organization is
reconsidering the “Indians” nickname. He said that in the wake of his comments, he received “some really, really, really thoughtful texts and emails” from friends and colleagues.
That wasn’t all.
“Then you get the other ones that I think sometimes people are just looking to get mad some days,” Francona said. “I might’ve gotten caught in that. That’s OK. … I will admit that there are people who got my email that I didn’t realize had the ability to get my email. So, for that segment of the population, thanks for sharing your opinions.”
As has become a regular occurrence, one long-tenured member of the beat — no names, that would be disrespectful to Paul Hoynes — struggled with the mute button on his Zoom screen. After several false starts when attempting to ask a question, Francona jumped in and quipped: “Take yourself off mute before I mute you. If I’m helping you with technical things, you are really in trouble.”
• Francisco Lindor joined the conference call next and shared his thoughts on the potential name change.
“I know society is shifting and we are due for some change,” he said. “So along those guidelines, yeah, I’m open for a change in name if it’s going to bring love and happiness and more peace to the world.”
He also said he hasn’t given much thought to his future in Cleveland over the last few months as there are more pressing matters at hand.
“I haven’t really thought about what’s going to happen after this year, or the middle of this year, or next season,” he said. “To be honest, I haven’t thought of that because there’s plenty of other things that I need to think of.
“With this pandemic, we did such a good job the first two months, and then all of a sudden, we started to not follow some of the guidelines. And I get it, we don’t have to live in fear. Don’t live in fear. But respect your neighbor. Respect your surroundings. You might be one person who’s super healthy and nothing happens to you, but somebody else is not as fortunate as you are. So understanding that taking care of yourself will take care of somebody else’s life is huge. I’ve been thinking more about that and all of the changes that we have to make for the team to move forward than thinking about, ‘Am I going to be in Cleveland or not?’ That’s something that’s way down the list.”
• Activity has spilled out of the clubhouse area into other parts of the ballpark. The video team set up shop at a table in front of the Home Plate Club on the main concourse. There are exercise bikes a few sections over, in line with the start of the visitors’ dugout.
Lindor, Pérez and Sandy Alomar Jr. gathered there after the morning session to discuss bicycles. Alomar, who logs 4,000-5,000 miles per year, turned Lindor and Pérez onto the activity earlier this year. Both players routinely embarked on long rides to stay in shape during baseball’s hiatus.
“Biking takes my mind off of this whole thing, helps clear my head,” Pérez said.
• Carlos Carrasco and Logan Allen each registered three innings in a simulated game. Christian Arroyo, Yu Chang, Mike Freeman, Greg Allen, Jake Bauers, Daniel Johnson, Bradley Zimmer and a few others stood in at the plate. Sandy León and Beau Taylor served as the catchers. The grounds crew watched from seats behind third base, a couple of sections over from where three photographers captured snapshots of the action.
Arroyo tagged Carrasco for a home run into the bleachers in the final inning, and it was capped with a socially distanced air high-five and shoulder bump celebration. Chang followed with another homer to left.
The Indians will hold their first intrasquad game on Thursday evening.