On the clock and forced to choose between another four hours on hold with Delta Airlines or stealing a few hours of sleep, Cardinals assistant general manager and draft helmsman Randy Flores made the call, electing to keep his rental car and deal with canceling his flight later.
All night, sometimes live on TV, professional sports halted their seasons due to the oncoming blitz of the coronavirus, and the dominoes were headed inevitably toward baseball. That March afternoon, Flores had attended a high school game in the southeast, and by that evening he was telling the team’s amateur scouts to head home, to pack up and get off the road.