The Orioles, in partnership with Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Baltimore Community Foundation (BCF), announced Nov. 30 a plan to facilitate COVID-19 testing for Elev8 Baltimore educators and staff. Tests will be regularly administered through January 2021 as part of the club’s ongoing efforts to serve the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the July opening day of this year’s strange and shortened baseball season, Clarence Haskett pulled out his phone and texted nearly 100 friends.
The group was “people that I’ve developed good relationships with over the years and see over and over again,” Haskett said. “I just hope everyone stays safe, so I can see them next year.”
Those friends surely appreciated getting a text from Haskett. But they probably would have preferred a cold beer.
Haskett, 61, is better known to legions of Orioles and Ravens fans as “Fancy Clancy” or “Clancy the Beer Man.” They cheer him on as he bounds up stadium steps carrying heavy buckets of brew, bending perilously over railings and striking muscular poses to serve his clients.
Haskett is one of scores of stadium workers and ancillary businesses who are sidelined by the year of the coronavirus, as players compete in empty stadiums with cutout figures propped in the front rows.
In March, as the coronavirus shut down Major League Baseball, the Orioles announced outfielder Trey Mancini left spring training a week prior because a malignant tumor was removed from his colon.
Mancini revealed in April he has Stage III cancer and he started chemotherapy earlier that month.
Orioles outfielder Trey Mancini noticed during spring training he was getting tired after a few swings.
“So I knew something was up, but I chalked it up to just getting older,” the 28-year-old said.
Blood samples taken near the start of camp showed Mancini’s iron levels were low, and team doctors asked him to take a second test. Mancini said he had just come down with the flu and figured it had something to do with that.
The Baltimore Orioles joined a growing list of ballclubs that will pay their baseball operations staff through May, and according to a club source, the team will also compensate all full-time and year-round part-time workers during that time as the start of the season continues to be delayed due to coronavirus.
With thousands of kids around the Baltimore region forced to learn at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Orioles are launching two websites to help young baseball fans learn math, vocabulary and much more.
On what should have been Opening Day for Major League Baseball, baseball players are all at home and fans are watching replays of their favorite team’s classic games as part of #OpeningDayAtHome.
Earlier this month, MLB suspended the start of the season due to the coronavirus pandemic, joining every major sports league in either delaying or cancelling games and tournaments.
For Orioles fans, that means the absence of a rite of spring and summer: taking in a game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards or following along at home on TV or the radio. But for the workers who staff the stadium–pouring beers or selling food–the lack of baseball means a loss of critical wages.
Orioles outfielder Trey Mancini, who last week left spring training for a “non-baseball” medical procedure, had surgery today to remove a malignant tumor from his colon today, the team announced.
The tumor was discovered during a colonoscopy last week. Test results from the tumor and a timetable for Mancini’s recovery will not be known until next week, the team said.
In the hope of drawing more families with children to games on school nights, the Orioles are pushing up the start time of some weeknight games in 2020, to 6:35 p.m. from 7:05 p.m.
The earlier first pitch will affect games before Memorial Day and after Labor Day, when kids are back in the classroom. In all, 16 home games will take place a half hour earlier as a result of the change, nine in April and May and seven in September.
By Nora Eckert and Andy Kostka
Capital News Service
During the baseball season, the weather radar is Nicole Sherry’s steadfast companion. It’s the last thing the Baltimore Orioles head groundskeeper checks before bed. When she wakes up, she reviews it to be sure nothing has drastically changed overnight.
“I have a plan A, B, C, D, E, F, you know?” Sherry said. “We’re always willing to adjust and ready to adjust at a moment’s notice.”
Those plans aren’t just for the next game. They’re for the coming years.
