Red Sox preseason is underway in Fort Myers, Florida, and with new changes to the team and COVID-19 guidelines in play, it's bound to be a season unlike any other. GBH Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with The Athletic's Jen McCaffrey to learn more about how the preseason is going and what's in store for the Sox this year. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Joe Mathieu: As expected, things are not exactly back to normal, dealing with COVID protocols at their park in Fort Myers and others. How'd the team look?
Jen McCaffrey: Yeah, I think it's coming together. Like you said, things are a little different. We don't have the access that we are used to in previous years, so we're piecing things together from video and a lot of Zoom calls and things like that. But so far, everyone's pretty much staying healthy, so that's kind of the main thing at this point.
Mathieu: Most reporters aren't even there, right, because you don't really have access, so what's the point of waiting around in Florida?
McCaffrey: Yeah, typically there's probably about 25 reporters down there right now from Boston, and I think there's three at this moment. So yeah, most of our media availability is over Zoom. Lots of phone calls and Zoom calls at this point.
Mathieu: Well, they only played seven innings and I know that's going to be the case, according to Alex Corra, for a lot of the preseason. What's the goal there? Is that to limit exposure? Is that a COVID precaution?
McCaffrey: Yeah, and to protect [the players] a little bit. It's a league-wide thing in Florida and Arizona. Coming off of a shortened season last year, they're really trying to protect the guys in terms of ramping up too quickly and sparking some injuries because they had a short season last year — an unorthodox schedule. So just to protect the guys' bodies a little bit more and ease guys into the season.
Mathieu: What other changes [are in place] for this year's spring training? I know you're not there, Jen, but we've seen, obviously, distancing [and] we've seen masking. I don't know what goes on in the locker rooms, for instance, and a lot of different leagues have taken different approaches to this.
McCaffrey: Yeah, everything is very different. Things are spread out much more. The guys aren't even coming to the park at the same time like they're normally used to. They're coming in waves and working out in small groups as opposed to all together at once. Even the group of players themselves is actually much bigger only because they're trying to make these groups smaller, but bring in minor leaguers that maybe be coming later in the season to get those guys a little bit more exposure. So it's basically little pods of guys that are coming in and working out at very specific times; [you] can't just roll in. Like you said, obviously, temperature checks, and they're not allowed to do things outside the park together. Everybody's sort of sectioned off and all the protocols you would assume there would be [and] that we've been dealing with for the past year or so.
Mathieu: And no going out then at night, right? They can't go out to dinner together.
McCaffrey: Yeah, they're really discouraged from gathering together, going to bars [and] going to restaurants. Obviously [in] Florida, there's a lot of things outdoors, but they're really asked to try to just stay at home, or the ones that don't have homes down there stay at their hotel rooms and just go back and forth to the park, basically.
Mathieu: Opening Day here at Fenway is April 1st. Do we know what to expect when games return to Fenway?
McCaffrey: Well, just last week Governor Baker announced that there would be fans allowed back at the stadiums and parks in Massachusetts. So we're expecting to have about 4,500 fans at Fenway. That's at 12 percent capacity, I believe it was, and that's basically what Fenway would be. So we don't really know exactly how they're going to do it. Fans that have season tickets would have priority over getting those seats. But yeah, I'm assuming it would be something like people sectioned off in certain parts around the park. They've zip-tied a lot of seats and things like that down in Florida where there are fans — about 25 percent capacity at those games. But I think something similar. But that's what we're anticipating at this point.
Mathieu: Of course, Fenway is also serving as a mass vaccination center at the same time, so this ought to be interesting to see these coincide.
McCaffrey: Yeah, they basically said that they're going to try to do both. Obviously not while the games are happening at home, but when the team goes on the road, they're hoping to keep that site going while the team's away from the park.
Mathieu: Jen, how's Red Sox Nation feeling about a team that let players like Mookie Betts go? And after everything we saw with Alex Cora, I know most are glad he's back, but are we just happy to have baseball back or are we going to find something to complain about this year?
McCaffrey: I think there'll be definitely a lot to complain about, and I'm sure fans will find it. Yeah, I think fans were wanting some big moves to happen this winter and Chaim Bloom, Chief Baseball Officer of the team, made a lot of smaller moves for guys — maybe fans haven't heard too much of it — but [he] really thinks that these guys can just fill out the roster and strengthen it in ways that last year we saw that they had so many holes on the roster, especially on the pitching side. None of these guys that they added this winter are big, splashy stars of the sport, but they should be able to plug some holes. I think people are expecting them to be better than they were last year, even though that's not really saying much, but it should be a little bit more competitive and a little bit more fun for fans.
Mathieu: I know you're not on the crime beat, Jen, but what's with everybody trying to break into Fenway Park? We have these two guys who broke in with the Tik Tok video — they're running around the snow a couple of weeks ago. I understand Saturday now somebody was arrested, a local teenager. They see seven people tried to scale the Green Monster. Is this coming off social media or do you even know?
McCaffrey: I don't really know exactly. I've seen the same things that you're mentioning. It's pretty strange. I'm not sure. Maybe it's a result of just the park being a little more open for the vaccines. But yeah, it's very odd. I think maybe people are just getting antsy being at home for, I think so long trying to find different things to do.
Mathieu: I think you're on to something there. I used to just be happy to stand outside and listen to the announcer when I was in college. My God, people are breaking in now!
