Royals Rumblings - News for April 1, 2020

Fire up your radios to listen again to some recent-ish Royals classics:

The Kansas City Royals announced today that on Thursday, April 2 at 7 p.m., the Royals Radio Network will begin offering “Royals Playback”, airing classic games starting with Game 5 of the 2015 World Series. All classic games can be heard locally on 610 Sports Radio. The broadcasts will feature postseason contests from 2015 as well as regular season games from the last 10 years, will air on Tuesdays (7 p.m.), Thursdays (7 p.m.), Saturdays (6 p.m.) and Sundays (noon) and feature the original broadcasts with an introduction from Steve Stewart.

The Royals are donating half a million meals through Harvesters. Here’s Alex Gordon on his part in the donation:

Rawlings Gold Glover and All-Star Alex Gordon and his family have contributed to the effort.

“Jamie and I and our kids are staying at home and trying to take this time to help each other as a family,” Gordon said. “But we also want to help our Kansas City area family. We feel very blessed, and we want to make sure our neighbors are taken care of.”

The Royals are encouraging fans to donate to Harvesters as they are able. Each dollar donated helps Harvesters leverage its buying power to purchase food from a network of partner agencies. Donations may be made directly to Harvesters at harvesters.org or through Royals Charities at royals.com/royalsrespond.

Minor league players will receive $400 per week from MLB until May 31 or MiLB opening day, whichever comes first.

A political cartoonist at the Kansas City Star had some thoughts about some of the scheduling tweaks that might allow the 2020 MLB season to be played, including double headers:

Doubleheaders are tough on catchers as well.

Throw in a couple doubleheaders a week and teams might need three catchers instead of two. And if that third guy isn’t the receiver the first two are, pitchers might be drawing straws to see who has to throw to a third-string catcher.

Nine games in a single week is a ton of baseball, which could lead to more injuries, so scheduling days off for position players is going to be even more important than it’s been in the past.

We think the best managers are the best at baseball strategy, but if teams are playing nine games a week, knowing when to give a shortstop a day off might be more important than knowing when to throw a pitchout.

Former Astros catcher/DH Evan Gattis confirms his playing days are finished. Gattis did not play in 2019 but was part of the 2017 Houston team and just offered up this, uh, odd framing regarding that team’s cheating.

Is right now really a wise time for star pitchers to be having Tommy John surgery?

The following people who play physical sports will be playing digital sports on ESPN:

What are the best board games to play over Zoom, etc.?

Dolly Parton will be reading bedtime stories online to me specifically kids everywhere every Thursday for a while, starting tomorrow.

If you’re going to dabble in home hair color During These Times, here’s what you need to know about prep and cleanup. (I am absolutely going to dabble in home hair color.)

Tell me something neat you’ve seen in your community lately. Let’s hear about the Helpers, whether they’re doing something big or a small gesture. My local greenhouse brought me a single packet of seeds to my car so I could plant peas but also not go into a store.

Song: Country singer Joe Diffie died this week from complications from Coronavirus, and we know exactly what he would have wanted from us, because he gave us a musical advance directive.