With a Week Until the Season Starts, Coliseum Getting Ready for Athletics
It’s one week before opening day for the Oakland A’s, and in the eyes of equipment manager Steve Vucinich, the club is where it needs to be for a season of socially distanced baseball.
“I’ve got bats. I’ve got baseballs. I’ve got uniforms,” Vucinich said Friday morning. “We’re good.”
Bats, balls and uniforms are all carryovers from baseball pre-2020. Almost everything else is different. That’s particularly true in the case of the A’s, who have moved from their clubhouse of five decades and moved upstairs to the locker room that had been home to the Raiders in the NFL’s two stints in Oakland.
It is a large space, large enough that Vucinich, who has been with the A’s since just weeks after the club move into the Coliseum in 1968, will “guarantee this is the biggest locker room in baseball right now. Guaranteed.”
Not that there aren’t issues. When players are at their lockers, they are probably 4½ feet away from other players rather than the recommended six feet. The room has a huge open space in the middle, however, so there’s no sense of being packed in.
And the added room isn’t just for the players. The training staff has moved upstairs, too.
“I’d say the trainers are in a space that is six times bigger than the space they had downstairs,” Vucinich said. “Their storerooms are much bigger than what they had. The current trainers’ room is being used by the chiropractor, who we haven’t seen yet, and by the massage therapist, Ozzie (Lyles).”
Walk into the A’s clubhouse and what you’ll mostly see is baseballs. More baseballs that you’d imagine one team would ever need. Under the rules agreed to by owners and players, batting practice baseballs can either be disinfected by spraying and used daily or they can be collected at the end of each day and be stored, not to be used again for five days.
When games come around, starting with the exhibition game Monday night against the San Francisco Giants, the rules say any ball that is put in play and is touched by multiple players, i.e. almost any ball put in play, has to be removed and replace by a new ball. The used balls also have to sit out five days.
The A’s have opted for the five-day plan, so there are baseballs everywhere. Boxes of them and bins of them.
When the Giants arrive Monday, they will find themselves in the visitors’ clubhouse, as per usual, but it won’t be close to the same. Manager Gabe Kapler will dress in the executives’ room that in past seasons was the haunt of executive vice president Billy Beane, general manager David Forst and other execs.
The coaching staff will be placed in what had been the media interview room – the interviews that have been and will continue to be done via video conference calls are actually being done from what had been the media dining room.
The Coliseum’s visitors’ clubhouse itself has been stripped of the chairs and tables that had lined the middle to create more space, but some of the overall space was lost to the creation of a small video room because, under the new protocols, replay officials can’t have any interference from players or staff.
The Giants will probably bring around 40 players over for the game, and the plan is that they would already be dressed; when the A’s play Tuesday in San Francisco, they will leave from the Coliseum already dressed.
Other tidbits about new-age baseball in the Coliseum in 2020:
--There are three weight training/physical conditioning rooms for the A’s use. One is the old one a couple of steps away from the old clubhouse. A second one has been created in the small room adjacent to the new clubhouse in what used to be a waiting room for Raiders’ family members. The third one, the biggest one, is outdoors in the Coliseum’s F Parking Lot under cover in the area that formerly was occupied by television trucks.
--Each pitcher has been assigned a ball bag with about 40 baseballs in it, a rosin bag and the new wet rag that has been authorized for use this season. The balls are rotated out as part of the five-day plan.
--There won’t be any Gatorade dumps after big home wins for the A’s. That’s because there won’t be any Gatorade jugs on the dugout steps. Bottled water will replace all that.
--All food for the players is being delivered in prepackaged containers. And as there are no tables in the clubhouses, as often as not players will eat at their lockers or sit in the Coliseum stands. The food is currently being dispensed from the visitors’ clubhouse, but that will change Tuesday.
--The laundry has to be lugged down stairs to the A’s original clubhouse, then lugged back up again.
--Because the Raiders’ locker room is on the same level as the parking lot, Vucinich and his crew will be able to ditch the part of their day when they have to lug bats, balls, uniform, training room gear and the like up stairs to get to the trucks that handle that gear to start a road trip.
--To ensure social distancing, every second shower in the Raiders’ locker room has been shut off so that players can keep their distance.
--Because there are no fans, bat boys make post-workout sweeps of the stands to collect the foul balls hit there. They bring back backs holding 40 or 50 balls. Yes, those baseballs are subject to the five-day rule.
--The only area that has had no substantial changes is the umpires’ room which is just north of the visitors’ clubhouse.
--Each pitcher has been assigned a ball bag with about 40 baseballs in it, a rosin bag and the new wet rag that has been authorized for use this season. The balls are rotated out as part of the five-day plan.
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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