How USC, Clemson baseball teams will play ball and navigate COVID obstacles in 2021

Greg Hadley

In the 10 months since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the 2020 baseball season, South Carolina coach Mark Kingston has watched much of college sports return.

He watched the Gamecock football team make it through the regular season before virus issues caused USC to miss out on a bowl trip. He watched the men’s basketball team endure multiple pauses because of positive tests. And on his own team, he watched fall scrimmages unfold, even as some players would have to miss a week or two for virus-related reasons.

Now, with college baseball on the precipice of returning fully, Kingston said he believes the sport has learned from the “trial and error” of the fall and watching others. But there’s a limit to it all.

“There are things out of your control. I mean, I look at (Alabama football coach) Nick Saban, and my guess is Nick Saban did everything possible to make sure that he did not get COVID, and he got COVID and missed a game,” Kingston said. “So much of this is still out of our control. You can do everything right and it still backfires on you.

“I know (Gamecock basketball coach Frank) Martin has been going through a heck of a season, so as we get closer to the season, I’ll probably reach out to him and ask what his thoughts are and things to do and not do.”

Opening Day is just a few weeks away in college baseball, scheduled for the same mid-February start it has had for decades. The SEC and several other conferences plan to play their full, normal schedules. USC, Clemson and other programs are in the midst of preseason scrimmages.

But when actual games happen, they’ll be in front of reduced crowds. Face masks and gaiters will be worn in dugouts. And no one seems to be kidding themselves that every game will be played as intended, much less every player available. They’re just hoping it will all be as normal as possible.

“I think that’s one of the biggest challenges that we all will face this year as baseball coaches, is managing our roster because of COVID,” Clemson coach Monte Lee said. “And I will tell you guys this — we haven’t been through a season yet with it. We had our season canceled last year 17 games in.

“We did have to deal with the virus in the fall. I’m sure every college baseball coach, especially who is in the position that we are in here at Clemson where we test our guys, every guy on our roster every single week — we’ve already had to deal with COVID, and we’ve already had to deal with the rules, the CDC guidelines, as far as the direct contacts. ... So we’ve already had to deal with that, and it’s basically just kind of dealing with it day by day.”

Pitching coach Skylar Meade and the South Carolina Gamecocks scrimmage at Founders Park ahead of the 2021 season.
Pitching coach Skylar Meade and the South Carolina Gamecocks scrimmage at Founders Park ahead of the 2021 season.

‘Intermediate’ risk, reduced crowds

Baseball is classified by the NCAA as an “intermediate” risk sport for virus transmission, a step below the “high” risk assessment for football and basketball, thanks to players being outside and mostly spread out across the diamond. As a result, both South Carolina and Clemson confirmed to The State that they will test all players, coaches and key staffers two times a week instead of the three that was standard for football.

Even for fans, things will be different at Founders Park and Doug Kingsmore Stadium. Capacity will be limited at both venues, with contact-less concession stands and no postgame interactions with players. There will be protective “bubbles” at both stadiums to ensure fans cannot get within six feet of any player.

On the field, more players will sit in the bullpen during games to allow for more social distancing in the dugout, Kingston said. They might even use some of the stands near the dugout to seat players, as Major League Baseball did this past summer.

And all of that is when games are actually played. There’s no telling when COVID issues will force postponements or cancellations — college football and basketball had to deal with literally hundreds of schedule adjustments, and that was without games on consecutive days like baseball so often has.

The SEC has released a full schedule of 56 games and 10 conference series for each team. But Kingston sounded far from optimistic that the full slate would unfold smoothly.

“I know our coaches and our players feel very safe and very confident that we are in good hands in terms of staying healthy and doing what we need to do,” Kingston said. “Now, the confidence level in, is the next game going to be played, are we going to have hiccups with the schedule? You know, the confidence level is not as high there, because there’s so many things out of your control. But for the most part, I feel like we’re about as confident going into this thing for a lot of areas as we can possibly be.”

The ACC has modified its scheduling structure this year to limit teams to 50 games while upping the number of conference series to 12. Like South Carolina, Clemson doesn’t have any open weekends to reschedule games should they be postponed.

With the recent approval and roll-out of vaccines intended to end the pandemic, there has been hope in some corners of the sports world that stadiums will be filled and restrictions lifted soon. But neither USC nor Clemson could offer any timeline on when players or key staffers might start to receive the COVID-19 vaccines or when larger crowds would be welcomed back to stadiums.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control calls for Phase 2, when all people who wish to be vaccinated can be, to start in the summer or fall. Before that, only essential workers, people 65 years or older or those with underlying health conditions can be vaccinated.

Clemson baseball coach Monte Lee wears his mask during one of the Tigers’ preseason scrimmages.
Clemson baseball coach Monte Lee wears his mask during one of the Tigers’ preseason scrimmages.

‘We’re going to have some hiccups’

While the fan experience and the arrangement of players in the dugout during games will change, there’s no indication players will have to wear masks on the field or at the plate. Most scientific study seems to suggest in-game transmission of the virus has been low to nonexistent.

The real threats of postponement, cancellations and pauses in activity are things like team meetings, locker room hangouts and shared meals, where the virus has been shown to most commonly spread.

Clemson combated that this fall, Lee said, by completely cutting the locker room out of the equation. Players showed up to practice already in their gear and left directly after, with no communal meals.

“We’ve made a lot of adjustments just to our day-in and day-out operations,” Lee said.

And even away from the ballpark, events normally held to encourage camaraderie have been shelved.

“We can’t do a lot of things that we would have done in the past — just little things,” Kingston said. “Like last year, we went to The Grand downtown and had a outing where the guys could bond. Every year, I have a Super Bowl party at my house for the team where we can bond, and we can’t do that this year. The guys have done paintball competitions in the past to bond as a team, and I don’t think they’ve done that yet this year.

“So from a team-bonding standpoint, it’s more of a challenge. Every minute you get out there on the field is more valuable for them to try to nurture that.”

The Gamecocks have adjusted their clubhouse too, converting the players lounge into a second locker room. With the added space, Kingston said he hopes it minimizes any contact tracing issues that might arise. Both Clemson and South Carolina have also said they plan to use two buses on road trips to spread players out.

But as both Kingston and Lee acknowledged, there’s only so much that can be done, especially with college student-athletes who often live together. The hope is players will limit their activities as much possible away from the team, but Lee knows that’s asking for a lot.

“These are college students. They want to gather, they want to socialize,” Lee said. “But we simply cannot do those types of things this spring if we expect to be able to work with our full roster throughout the whole course of the spring. We know that we’re going to have some hiccups, but we’re just gonna have to deal with it and just do the very best we can.”

South Carolina baseball

Preseason rank: No. 18 in D1Baseball Top 25

Opening Weekend series: vs. Dayton

▪ 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19

▪ TBA, Saturday, Feb. 20

▪ 12 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21

Season schedule note: The Gamecocks are scheduled to play eight opponents ranked in D1Baseball’s top 25, including seven of the top 12. Their SEC schedule opens with a bang against No. 4 Vanderbilt, then No. 1 Florida.

3 players to watch: Julian Bosnic, LHP; Brennan Milone, 3B; Wes Clarke, 1B

Founders Park capacity: limited to 2,100

Clemson baseball

Preseason rank: Unranked in D1Baseball Top 25

Opening Weekend series: vs. Cincinnati

▪ 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19

▪ 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 20

▪ 1 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21

Season schedule note: The Tigers have a midweek matchup with SEC opponent Georgia in late April, in addition to ACC series against ranked opponents in Florida State, Georgia Tech, N.C. State, Miami, Wake Forest, Virginia and Louisville.

3 players to watch: Davis Sharpe LHP/1B; Elijah Henderson, INF/OF; Kier Meredith, OF

Doug Kingsmore Stadium capacity: limited to 1,280

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