Jose Abreu is not afraid.
He knows the risks, and has concerns for his family in Miami, and for himself and his White Sox teammates, during this pandemic.
He will take the necessary precautions and exercise safety as the Sox prepare for a 60-game season, but he won’t live in fear.
“If you live your life in peace, everything is going to be OK,” the Sox star first baseman said this week through translator Billy Russo.
“In God’s hands, everything is going to be good and God is going to protect us.”
A calming presence from a veteran leader goes a long way as the Sox group of players and staff work every day at Guaranteed Rate Field, which is dressed to the nines in coronavirus prevention measures. Two unnamed teammates tested positive – although both were asymptomatic — before they arrived, one of them believed to be Yoan Moncada. More than 40 players around baseball are known to have tested positive. So there is a sense of awareness from the three-time All-Star.
“This is something we are all facing, we are all making adjustments to the COVID-19 virus,” Abreu said.
And so the Sox go about their business, doing what they can to stay healthy. They feel like they are in as safe an environment as they can be, under the circumstances of being baseball players.
“Here we get tested every other day,” veteran right-hander Steve Cishek said Thursday, “so I feel a lot safer coming here and training versus what I was doing in Florida, where who knows what the guy next to you is doing.”
In the meantime, Abreu’s voice and presence continues to mean something to his teammates, one of the reasons whey they resigned him to a three-year, $50 million deal in the offseason. During the 33-year-old veteran’s conference call with media this week, there he was talking about things that can distract and interfere with the things that matter. For up and coming young stars such as Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert with new wealth and fame, new challenges come with it. Nice problems to have, but these are issues that require attention.
“Be strong, because it’s hard,” Abreu warned.
“I’m going to be there with [Jimenez]. If he needs something, however I can help him, I’m going to be there just to help and support him. That’s going to be a plus too, the same way I’m going to be there for Luis Robert.”
The Sox played their first instrasquad game Thursday, 15 days ahead of the season opener against the Twins. Abreu lined out and singled in his two at-bats. There’s no time to waste getting ready.
And everyone needs to be ready when the bell rings in two weeks.
“Sixty games is going to be different for us,” Abreu said. “We have to go every day trying to win every game and there is no room for error. We have to … take advantage of this situation.”
This three-week period is the new six-week prep time of a normal spring training in Arizona. The facilities are different and there is a sense of speeding things up, even though the Sox trained four weeks before the shutdown in March.
“Us players have to get used to that routine or those limitations, those hours the schedule has,” Abreu said. “[It will take time] for us to feel real comfortable but at the end, I think we’re going to do it without any major problems.
“It’s on us to keep our focus and work hard to try to be in the best shape as possible when the season starts. It’s on us.”
In a pandemic, some of it might be out of their hands. Those things Abreu isn’t losing sleep over.
“Make the right decisions in every moment,” he said. “Just do the best that we can in this situation.”
