Aaron Boone and Luis Rojas still have jobs to do.
As Major League Baseball waits to see when — or if — games will be played this year, the New York managers have had plenty of time to stay in touch with their respective players.
“We have been in constant communication over the phone. It hasn’t been difficult because that’s how I communicate with them in the offseason,” Boone told ESPN. “It’s a different way of communicating at this time of the year, so I think that’s one of the frustrating things about it. In my selfish, bubble mode, this is the time of the year when you’re getting ready to start the season and we have all those personal interactions, and that’s all gone. That’s the frustrating part of it, professionally and selfishly.”
Maintaining constant contact may be even more important for Rojas, the Mets’ first-year manager.
“We use an application that all large organizations are using, called Teamworks,” Rojas said in an interview with the same outlet. “There we send group messages and information to the entire groups, communicate in general terms, with the whole group. We are also constantly making calls and sending personal texts to keep in touch. Lately we have been using Zoom video calls.
“Every day, I talk to [general manager] Brodie [Van Wagenen], or to different people in the front office. I talk to the people who work in the kitchen, with the people who work on video, just to find out how everyone is doing. We are a big family, and we have spent many years working together in the organization. I am also working with my son who is doing virtual homework as well, so we are doing a lot of homework. But I really have no anxiety. We focus on controlling what we can control and staying informed.”
Often, Boone, whose club had two minor leaguers test positive for the virus, said baseball takes a backseat in the conversations.
“Mostly topical or personal stuff,” Boone said of the subject matter. “How are you doing? How’s the family? What have you been up to? Those are most of our questions. They’re getting a lot of updates from the players’ association; they’re updated as much as I am. Most of our guys certainly understand that the great unknown right now is when stuff’s going to start up. I’m sure we all spend a lot of the day speculating and having our own thoughts and opinions about when it might [start again], but at this point that’s just a guess.”
The uncertainty of a starting date, combined with the closure of countless training facilities, creates an ongoing problem for the players.
“Many players are experiencing problems with the facilities where they train, which are no longer open,” Rojas said. “But from the beginning we were very diligent, led by [general manager] Brodie Van Wagenen and our performance group. Each player has a specific workout plan. If they have weights available, they have a workout plan with weights, or there’s a workout plan if they have no weights, for any situation they find themselves in.
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“I do believe we are going to have a season this year. I hope we will. But knowing the timeline right now is very difficult. We certainly know that what is happening right now is much bigger than the game. Now we are following protocols, following everything to the letter to overcome this. But our mentality is that we will play baseball this year, at some point.”
Until then, Boone can catch up on Yankees classics.
“I’ve caught up on my binge-watching on Netflix. I’ve also watched a lot of old baseball games; I was watching the Randy Johnson 20-strikeout game that I was involved in, on the wrong side,” Boone said. And I was talking with my dad (Bob), actually, because I was watching 2000, the Yankees-Mets, Game 1 of the Subway Series. I was talking to my dad about a situation and what he would have done and what I would have done. Obviously, this is an incredibly difficult time for our country and for the world, and it has been a time to hit the pause button, which isn’t always the worst thing, and has given us a chance to connect in a different kind of way.”