Working from Home Journals: Plugging away

Minor League Baseball will return, and when it does team employees will be ready. In this second installment of the Working from Home Journals, six individuals from throughout the industry fill us in on what they've been up to. To read part one, click here. For part two, click here.

Sam Levitt
Broadcaster, Amarillo Sod Poodles
Third year in MiLB (and another three in independent baseball) 
Second year with the Sod Poodles

Hey, everybody! The show continues to go on here at the Amarillo Sod Poodles' remote broadcast studios at my fairly unfurnished apartment. We've continued to broadcast from here for our twice-a-week #Sodcast shows and had great guests last week: Padres broadcaster Jesse Agler and Amarillo native Tucker Davidson, who's the No. 10 prospect in the Braves' organization. We're also now doing multiple game replays during the weekend both on YouTube and our Sod Poodles Radio Network. We continue to try and bring some entertainment to our fans' devices and into their homes during these very challenging times.
On a personal note, here's probably the No. 1 change for me during this quarantine: I'm cooking! (#ChefSammy). It's not anything crazy, but anyone who knows me is aware that I'm not much of a cook, especially during baseball season. But this has been a nice opportunity to cook and learn some easy new things to make! I made a tasty stir fry for dinner last night ... and I've learned that the tortilla is truly a magical item. You can use it for SO many things: breakfast tacos, regular tacos, wraps, dip it in soup ... the list goes on! What a find those tortillas are. I'm trying to also get takeout from local restaurants 1-2 times per week to support some of these places that are also going through very difficult times.

Stay safe, everyone. We're all in this together. 

Steven Elovich
VP of Corporate Partnerships for the Salem Red Sox
13th year in MiLB (all with the Salem Red Sox)

Trying to find cash flow, that's the name of the game right now. It's always tough to sell sponsorship assets once the season begins, but it is unimaginable trying to create pitches when you have no idea when the season will start. Yet there is hope. The baseball industry contains some of the most inventive minds around, so new sponsorship assets are emerging from makeshift ideas which focus on a largely homebound fanbase.
Our weekly sales meeting that once only involved salespeople now contains our creative and social media staff as well [currently joining in from five different states]. Concepts are floated and discussed. The reality of trying to sell sponsorship on ballpark food to-go orders now exists … not something I would've imagined being tasked with on Opening Day. An iPhone once reserved for texting and Instagram is now a huge daily part of my life as I bang out calls, trying to find the right partner for any and all of our "new ideas."
As far as personal growth while working from home: I have decided I am far more productive when wearing real pants and not sweats or shorts. Working from home still isn't easy, but right now I'm just thankful to have a job and for that job to be in baseball.
Emily Wydo
Manager of Marketing and Promotions, Salem Red Sox
Rookie season in MiLB (spent 2019 working for the Minnesota Twins)

First of all, I want to give a shout-out to the entire MiLB team that put together #OpeningDayAtHome and executed a high volume of fun elements for fans to engage with throughout the day. It was fun to see what other teams were doing across the league to lift the spirits of their fans on what should have been a day spent at the ballpark.
Opening Day is a marker on the calendar. It reminds us that winter is gone and summer is here. And, like Opening Day, many life highlights that shift us mentally into a new season have been postponed, canceled or experienced from afar [weddings, prom, babies being born, etc.] That has been the weirdest part of all of this for me.
I create Spotify playlists for every month of the year, adding songs I listen to regularly -- new or old -- as a way to remember that season of life. When I listen to that playlist I am transported back, and a flood of memories rushes in. Maybe I'm just a sap or really nostalgic, I don't know. New beginnings or big occasions are ways for me to remember that my life was once one way and now it is another. Opening Day is that for me.

Opening Day is a mental push into the next step, giving myself permission to move on from the old and tackle the new. For many of us in baseball, on a practical level that means a shift in our job focus. We ramp up the hours running around a ballpark, saying goodbye to our offseason selves and tabling some projects for when the season is over.
However, I can say it's been great to be home with my family, to have more time together instead of saying "sayonara" until August. We did, however, spend the whole week arguing about who was using all of the Wi-Fi bandwidth. On Friday, a guy came to increase the speed [shoutout to the internet guy].
My whole point is that we are all adjusting to this new norm and finding creative ways to entertain ourselves, build and keep relationships, and seek meaning in our days.

Personally, I've decided to use this time to spend more effort reaching out to league counterparts, researching better ways we can interact and engage with fans on social and learn how to do different things in Adobe [my chosen trade is NOT graphic design, despite that being a major part of my role now]. My sister, however, has purchased the Nintendo Switch and Animal Crossing. I have yet to cave, but I'm close.
Casey Sawyer
Marketing Manager, Hillsboro Hops
Eight years in Minor League Baseball (all with Hillsboro)

I'm heading into Week Five of working from home. There's certainly been enough time to make adjustments, to be able to remain productive and think even more outside the box when it comes to creativity. Don't get me wrong, there are obviously still distractions everywhere, but the routine has become so normal that I'm beginning to make some real gains.
Communication with your team and your coworkers is essential right now. If you are at all unsure whether someone is working on something, just double check. Sometimes we take these things for granted in an office because you're constantly around everyone else and check with them easily. In this new norm, make sure you send an email, text, Teams message, whatever. Communication now is more important than ever.
I'm certainly no expert on this, but I'm starting to feel some real hope for us as we work our way through this. As long as we continue to distance ourselves, we should see some real gains in the next few weeks. We're all looking forward to getting our teams out on the field again, helping to reconnect our communities.
Nate Kurant
Director of Promotions, Charleston RiverDogs
Ninth year in MiLB, heading into fifth season in Charleston

It was a most unusual Opening Night. However, a lot of teams did a lot of great things to engage their fans. Our team, across the board, did an amazing job. Specific kudos to the normally unsung Ryan Perry, our video director. He built an incredible production of videos and tech that made the whole day feel like an event.
One of the highlights has been our "dice baseball" season. We're playing out each game of our schedule via a simple dice game. What's made it so positive is using our fans as the players. By putting a call out each day to be in the lineup, we've gotten tens of thousands of engagements of fans getting to be one of the #DiceDogs for the day. We post a scorecard each morning and afternoon that fans can also print out at home to play on their own.

The wind must’ve been blowing out today. 5 home runs total, including one for RiverDogs MVP Gabe Hogan. Unfortunately, the rolls didn’t go our way. We’ll face off against Hickory starting tomorrow. #DiceDogs pic.twitter.com/wkVZ1ZDZ22

— Charleston RiverDogs (@ChasRiverDogs) April 12, 2020

Another fun element for us was playing our Opening Night via MLB The Show, online vs. Kannapolis. I ended up facing off vs. their broadcaster, Trevor Wilt, and the game had both positives and negatives. On the fun side, it turns out I grew up with Trevor's cousins down in Florida, which we coincidentally happened to discover during our showdown. On the down side, I rediscovered that I'm terrible at video games [as evidenced by seven errors and 24 strikeouts].
We continue to find new ideas, which is a testament to our creative team and staff as a whole. Developing new ideas and adjusting constantly to the new normal has been a challenge. That said, we continue to make fun and we have heard great responses from our fans and from those across Minor League Baseball.