On a downtown Toledo baseball field, you can see – as if deep into a crazy dream – how 2020 and a pandemic have so contorted lives. And sports.
The Tigers are trying to keep 30 players either ready for a trip to Detroit this summer, or in future seasons. It’s a mixed bag when an outfielder like Jorge Bonifacio, who three years ago hit 17 home runs for the Royals, is playing intra-squad games against a guy 14 months out of high school: Riley Greene.
Or when Dillon Dingler, who began the spring playing for Ohio State, is working at catcher against more seasoned souls when he should be playing at Single A Connecticut or West Michigan.