Cleveland Indians President On Coronavirus Shutdown: ‘This Is A New One. We’re Learning On The Fly’

Cleveland Indians president Chris Antonetti was speaking for his own team, but his words apply for all teams.

“We don’t have a playbook for this. This is a new one. We’re learning on the fly,” said Antonetti to reporters Friday at the Indians’ spring training complex in Goodyear, Ariz.

The pandemic that has brought all sports to a halt has left all teams in roughly the same situation. Trying to deal with the present while preparing for an uncertain future.

“We’re trying to prioritize the health and wellness and safety of everyone here,” said Antonetti. “Obviously, things are very fluid.”

The Indians held an optional workout today, but there will be no workouts, optional or otherwise, on Saturday and Sunday. Antonetti said everyone connected with the team will stay in the Phoenix area for the weekend, but after that things are more uncertain.

“We will continue to take guidance from the health care professionals as well as from Major League Baseball on what we should be doing,” he said.

Indians officials met with Indians players on Thursday and Friday.

“The guys obviously had a lot of questions, and we did the best we could to answer them,” Antonetti said. “A lot of those answers right now, in the moment, are ‘We don’t know yet.’ But we tried to share what information we did have.”

 The Indians, like all teams, are in a holding pattern regarding what’s next.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” Antonetti said. “Right now, we want to take a breath and give ourselves time to work through what the path will be starting Monday. It doesn’t seem like it makes sense to get a lot of people gathered together at the complex at one time.”

Antonetti and his staff have been, and were in constant contact with MLB about the crisis, which caused virtually all professional sports organizations to shut down on Thursday.

“We were prepared to act quickly, based upon the information we were getting from the infectious disease specialists about how rapidly things can evolve and change,” Antonetti said. “We know it’s going to be a dynamic environment and will continue to be, and that’s why we’re reluctant to say what’s going to happen on Monday or Wednesday, or two weeks from now.”

Major League Baseball has announced that Opening Day, which had been scheduled for March 26, will be delayed at least two weeks. Obviously, it could be longer, much longer than that, but, again, teams are trying to be ready for whatever the coming weeks might hold.

“I think there’s an understanding that this is something new that we all haven’t had to deal with before,” Antonetti said. “So we appreciate the patience (of Indians players), until we try to figure out what the next best steps are.”