The New York Times - USA (2020-10-26)

D2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2020

BASEBALL

players selected in the five rounds
and found that 15 of them were
Black. Then he reached out to
each one of them — via text mes-
sage or direct message on social
media — with an invitation.
“Thank you very much, Insta-
gram,” Granderson, who retired
earlier this year after 16 major
league seasons, said in a phone in-
terview.
After Granderson welcomed
the draftees into the nonprofit —
which was created this summer to
build Black participation in the
sport — he sent them each a Zoom
link. As soon as outfielder Baron
Radcliff, the Philadelphia Phillies’
fifth-round pick out of Georgia
Tech, joined the video call from the
link, he was floored when he saw
the faces of players he had idol-
ized or watched on television —
C. C. Sabathia, Andrew Mc-
Cutchen, Delino DeShields Jr. and
Torii Hunter.
“Whoa, this is crazy,” said Rad-
cliff, 21.
Radcliff was one of nearly a doz-
en draftees who joined the hour-
long chat. After an introduction,
they broke into small groups,
many of them paired with current
and former players of the same or-
ganization or city. The Mets draft-
ee Isaiah Greene talked to Domi-
nic Smith, a current Mets first
baseman and outfielder, and
Sabathia, a longtime Yankees
pitcher who retired last year.
Ed Howard, the Cubs’ first-
round pick from Mount Carmel
High in Chicago, asked current
and former major leaguers about
what to expect in spring training
and about their paths through the
minor leagues. He was encour-
aged to connect with Cincinnati
Reds pitcher Amir Garrett and the
prospect Hunter Greene, he said,
because it meant that when he
was in Arizona for spring training
or instructional league, “I got peo-
ple I can count on and talk about
things.”
“There’s not a lot of Black play-
ers in the game,” added Howard,
19, “and just being a mentor helps
me feel more comfortable on this
new journey, going around differ-
ent places to play, being around
different people and things like
that. They talked a lot of about be-
ing myself and being a good exam-
ple for people coming up behind
me.”
Radcliff said he already had
some idea of what to expect be-
cause his father, a former Royals
minor leaguer in the 1990s, had
passed along his experiences.

(Back then, African-American

players made up as much as 19

percent of the major leagues.)

Still, Radcliff said, it was jarring to

arrive at the Phillies’ instructional

camp last month and see only two

other Black players, out of the

nearly 60 present. On the Zoom

call, he said, he tried to be a

sponge.

“They talked about making

sure you’re hustling,” said Rad-

cliff, an Atlanta native, “because

there are stereotypes of Black

players in pro ball, and they don’t

want us to fall into that trap. It was

all good advice.”

The young players were also all

added to a large GroupMe mes-

sage chain with all of the players

in the nonprofit, like the Yankees

star Giancarlo Stanton to

Sabathia.

Howard already had Grander-

son’s number — the two had

crossed paths before in Chicago —

and he said he had stayed in touch

with Jason Heyward, a Black out-

fielder for the Cubs who reached

out after Howard was drafted by

the team, and Tim Anderson, a

Black shortstop for the Chicago

White Sox. Since the Zoom meet-

ing, Radcliff said, he has talked

frequently with two others from

Georgia in the group: Edwin Jack-

son, who last pitched for the Ti-

gers in 2019, and Dexter Fowler, a

St. Louis Cardinals outfielder.

“It’s crazy having all these

guys’ phone numbers in my

phone,” Radcliff said, adding lat-

er: “I don’t want to be a bother —

‘Oh, hit me up.’ But every time I’ve

hit somebody up, I always get a re-

sponse and it’s always cool.”

Cameron Maybin, a 14-year-

veteran outfielder who played for

the Cubs and the Tigers this sea-

son, said the Zoom call was also

“an incredible platform” for the

draftees to share their experi-

ences with racism, as well as an

opportunity to ask questions

about entering pro baseball be-

fore even stepping foot on a major

league field.

“I wish I would’ve had that go-

ing in and been able to reach out to

C. C. Sabathia and some of these

older guys and ask: ‘What am I in

for? What is this going to be

like?’ ” he said in a phone inter-

view.

When Maybin first reached the

major leagues with the Tigers at

age 20 in 2007, he said older play-

ers such as Gary Sheffield,

Thames, Young and Granderson

took him under their wings. They

told him to “be seen, not heard” —

a common piece of advice Black

players give one another.

“They were teaching me from

ayoung age how I needed to

move,” said Maybin, now 33, who

helped found the Players Alliance.

“And I didn’t realize it until I got

older. Then you’re like, ‘Damn,

these dudes were really trying to

help me make sure I didn’t stub

my toe on the way.’ ”

The acts of kindness by one

teammate in particular during

Maybin’s rookie season have

stuck with him. Granderson, who

was 26 at the time, let Maybin

sleep on his couch in Detroit for a

week after his call-up, and then

took him out to eat in every new

city they visited that season.

“This dude took me every-

where,” Maybin said. “Every-

where.”

Granderson took the mentor-

ship tradition to heart throughout

his career. He sent equipment to

minor league, college or youth

players who were in need and

would bring teammates along to

meals. He hosted an annual cook-

out, mostly for his Black team-

mates, at his cousin’s home in

Florida during spring training.

“It was stuff that was happen-

ing all around us that you just did-

n’t say was mentoring,” he said.

“It’s just what you did.”

The person who did that for

Granderson was Young, who also

gave younger Black players bats,

DVDs of “Chappelle’s Show” to

watch on the road, and jewelry af-

ter Young signed a four year,

$28.5-million contract with the Ti-

gers in 2002.

When Young first reached the

major leagues with the St. Louis

Cardinals in 1996, he said, he re-

ceived similar treatment from

multiple players: Royce Clayton,

who always took him to lunch;

Ray Lankford, who bought him

suits so he could dress like a big

leaguer; and Brian Jordan, who

always offered advice. And when

he was traded to the Cincinnati

Reds two years later, Young’s

mentor was Jeffrey Hammonds,

who often invited him to his room

after games to have a drink and

talk shop for two to three hours at

a time.

“He was showing me the big

league way,” said Young before

rattling off the mentorship tree of

Black baseball stars. “Jeffrey

learned from Eric Davis, and Eric

Davis learned from Dave Parker,

and Dave Parker learned from

Willie Stargell, and Willie Stargell

learned from Roberto Clemente.

You see where the gravy train is

going?”

It is still going, even in a pan-

demic.

For Black Players, Road

To the Majors Has a Guide

From First Sports Page

Above, a shot from a Players

Alliance video chat with Black

players taken in the draft.

Curtis Granderson, far left, did

the things for younger players

that Dimitri Young did for him.

PLAYERS ALLIANCE

DUANE BURLESON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

ARLINGTON, Texas — It is a
memorable image of nearly
every World Series opener: The
members of each team standing
shoulder to shoulder along the
baselines, the
players in the
lineup announced
one by one, the
managers shaking
hands over home
plate. A celebrity
belts out the national anthem
while dozens of people clutch the
edges of a giant American flag
stretched across the outfield.
None of that happened at the
beginning of the 116th World
Series, between the Los Angeles
Dodgers and the Tampa Bay
Rays, at Globe Life Field on
Tuesday. Even the ceremonial
first pitch was delivered in the
middle of the outfield, a safe
social distance from the pitcher’s
mound. The anthem played, but
only on the scoreboard. The
lineup announcements had all
the majesty of a midweek game
in April.
“We’re so close to the end
here, and I think the feeling is we
just don’t want to do anything
that would jeopardize that,” Dr.
Gary Green, Major League Base-
ball’s medical director, said in an
interview. “In the regular season,
you did have some flexibility in
terms of doubleheaders, or you
could move games to the other
team’s site, or you could resched-
ule games — you can’t do that
now. If we had an outbreak and
we had to stop for a week or two
weeks, that would really just
kind of ruin the whole postsea-
son.”
Dr. Green spoke on Thursday,
between Games 2 and 3 of the
World Series, and the next morn-
ing M.L.B. made its weekly an-
nouncement of Covid-19 test
results — once a source of dread,
now a source of pride. The 3,597
monitoring samples collected
and tested in the previous week
had yielded zero new positives,
the league said, and no player
had tested positive for 54 days.
In all there have been 91 new
positives — 57 players and 34
staff members — among the
172,740 tests conducted this
season, or .05 percent. For a
league that weathered early
outbreaks of 18 positive tests for

Miami Marlins players and 10 for

St. Louis Cardinals players, it has

been a remarkable turnaround

that essentially saved the season.

“I’ll appreciate everyone that

made this possible for as long as

I live,” Rays starter Charlie Mor-

ton said, adding later: “It’s weird

to go to the stadium and not see

the parking lots just filled with

people and local TV crews just

hanging out, you name it. It’s

weird, it’s sad — but it’s still very

exciting.”

That is a fitting tagline for this

season: weird, sad, but very

exciting. There were no fans in

the stands, except for limited

crowds at the National League

Championship Series and the

World Series, where the Game 1

attendance — 11,388 — was the

lowest since Game 6 in 1909,

when Ty Cobb and Honus Wag-

ner roamed Bennett Park in

Detroit. But the games went on,

and the intensity was real.

“I don’t know if you watched

Game 7 last night, but it sure felt

like the postseason to me,” the

Dodgers’ Justin Turner said after

the N.L.C.S., when a reporter

wondered if the games had the

usual October emotion. “The

back-and-forth, the momentum

shifts, big plays, big swings, big

pitches — that was as much of a

playoff feel as I’ve ever experi-

enced.”

Elsewhere, a brutal off-season

has already begun, with even

big-market teams like the Chi-

cago Cubs initiating dozens of

layoffs. After a year of reduced

revenue, owners may be reluc-

tant to spend big on players in

free agency, which could raise

tensions between the league and

the players’ union as they enter

the final year of their collective

bargaining agreement.

But for now, the sides can

celebrate the achievement of

staging a season in 30 ballparks

(including one minor league

stadium) during a pandemic.

“The biggest thing that’s got-

ten us through is flexibility and

dealing with uncertainty,” Dr.

Green said. “Sports thrive on

certainty and routines, and for

players, what time they get to

the ballpark, everything they go

through for their pregame and

postgame — well, we’ve dis-

rupted all of that. Some teams

didn’t find out their game was

rescheduled or canceled until

right before the game, and yet

they’ve still been able to focus on

playing and doing all the things

they need to.”

The Marlins’ season took a

week’s hiatus after only three

games, and the Cardinals missed

16 days after playing only five

games. Both teams rallied to

make the expanded playoffs, and

with creative scheduling — in-

cluding seven-inning games for

doubleheaders — all but two

Cardinals games were played.

During the Cardinals’ absence,

baseball tightened health and

safety protocols, expanding

mask requirements for players

and staff members, restricting

the places players could visit

outside the ballpark, and in-

structing compliance officers to

monitor clubhouses and team

hotels. The feeling of being

locked down wore on some play-

ers.

“I like to go out and clear my

mind, because baseball is hard; if

you always think about baseball,

you’re going to go crazy,” Rays

shortstop Willy Adames said.

“And if you’re going bad, you

need some fresh air, you need

some distraction, go have dinner

and you distract your mind.

That’s been the hardest part for

some of us young guys: We like

to do all that kind of stuff, and

obviously all those protocols

we’ve got to follow, they’re hard.

You’ve got to adjust to it.”

The players did, and just as

important as the new rules, Dr.

Green said, was the sobering

example from the Marlins and

the Cardinals of just how precari-

ous the season could be.

“One of the things we’ve seen

with the virus, not only with

baseball but throughout society,

is it really can find gaps in your

coverage,” Dr. Green said. “We

were very lucky in the beginning

that we didn’t have very many

positive cases, and then all of a

sudden we had these outbreaks,

and I think people realized: ‘Hey,

these things are there for a rea-

son, and any deviation from that

can potentially really wreck the

whole season.’ So that was a

wake-up call.”

Dr. Green also said that

M.L.B.’s ability to use its own

laboratory in Utah to analyze

test samples turned out to be

critical, because the methodolo-

gy was consistent and the lab

was able to validate a saliva test.

“The nasal swabs are not very

comfortable,” he said, “and if

you’re talking about testing

people every other day during

the season and every day during

the postseason, the saliva test is

a much more palatable way to do

that.”

Players had a powerful finan-

cial incentive to follow the rules.

Their 2020 salaries were pro-

rated based on the truncated

schedule, meaning that they

made roughly 37 percent of their

anticipated income before the

pandemic. The shared sacrifice,

and the especially close proxim-

ity to one another — particularly

before families were allowed into

the postseason secure zones —

brought some teams closer to-

gether.

“I know we haven’t been able

to be around family, but I feel like

this team is family,” said the

Dodgers’ Mookie Betts. “We

spend so much time together at

the hotel, here at the field, and

nobody gets tired of each other

— we’re all laughing, joking. I

couldn’t ask for a better group of

guys to call family, man, it’s just

been amazing.

“So going through this season

with Covid and whatnot hasn’t

been so bad, because I have

these guys.”

After Early Scares, the Big Leagues Kept the Virus at Bay

The Rays won Game 4 on Saturday night in a World Series that has forgone some traditions in the name of coronavirus safety.

RONALD MARTINEZ/GETTY IMAGES

TYLER

KEPNER

ON

BASEBALL

.