Drayer: What to look for and do as Mariners, MLB wait for return

The last week has been an absolute blur which started with the possibility of the Mariners not being able to open their season at home and ended with a 23-hour straight drive from Peoria to Seattle.

MLB delays opening day to mid-May at earliest

It was time to go home and for some reason, two people who have never had any trouble flying in the past had an immediate and very visceral reaction to the thought of going through an airport, let alone being sealed in a tube with strangers elbow to elbow for four hours despite how many posts we read about airline air filtration systems and how many Purell Wipes we had on hand.

Now safely home and with family, the blur has worked its way into focus and on the baseball side of things, the stunning realization that baseball really is shut down. Not just the games, but everything.

This isn’t offseason Part 2. We are not going to be hearing about the possibility of big trades or signings for the Mariners or other teams. There is no Winter Meetings, no Hall of Fame balloting period, no pre-spring training press events that signal that baseball is nearly back. This is a complete and total stop.

Staring out the window and waiting for spring is one thing, but I don’t think Rogers Hornsby had a playbook for this one.

Of course, this is a different time and access to baseball even in a time of global pandemic is tremendous.

Are you looking for ways to spend the time while staying home? MLB has downloaded most of their games from 2009-2018 to YouTube.

To find a game, type in the search bar the first three letters of the cities (when there are two teams in a city, type the first two letters and follow with “A” or “N” for the league) and the date. Example, the Mike Blowers epic prediction of Matt Tuiasosopo’s first big league home run with the Mariners would be SEA AT TOR – September 27, 2009.

There is more free content. It was good to see this shortly after the announcement of the shutdown.

With events canceled & so much closed, I asked @PBS to stream BASEBALL for free so we can participate in the national pastime together. Watch at the link below or on any streaming device. And please look out for those with greater needs. Play ball. @MLB https://t.co/WaQLSpeYkF pic.twitter.com/QYp1XE0SLC

— Ken Burns (@KenBurns) March 15, 2020

A tremendous series.

There will be content here as well. While there won’t be trades and signings to follow, start dates, what to do about spring training, what an abbreviated schedule would look like, where will they play and how far into the fall can they push things are just some of the things that will be discussed by MLB and the MLBPA.

While these things will be a bit down the road, there is still a lot to unpack, like a notebook to unload from spring training. What we saw on the pitching side in particular was very intriguing and we can get more into that in the coming weeks. I have got a few videos remaining as well, including one of the best baseball stories I have heard in a long time.

I am looking into a few other things that we can do here while we wait. We’ll figure this one out as we go along and to that end, if there is something you would like to see here leave a comment.

Baseball will be back at some point – I am not going to speculate on the when – but there is a lot we can get into until it is.

Follow 710 ESPN Seattle’s Shannon Drayer on Twitter.

Related:

• Moore: Navigating a world without sports comes with 2nd guesses
• Groz: The lessons of sports teach us what we need to do during crisis

Follow @shannondrayer