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Neverett preps for uncertainty as opening day approaches

By Tom King - Sports Writer | Jul 18, 2020

Telegraph Sports Reporter Tom KIng.

He was leaving this past Thursday on a jet plane.

Nashua’s Tim Neverett’s White Mountains retreat time was over, and he was flying cross country into an air of absolute uncertainty in his role as a Los Angeles Dodgers radio and television broadcaster.

Professional Pandemic Baseball. It’s going to be a unique experience.

And perhaps a little nerve-racking as well.

“I’m probably a little more (nervous) today than I was (earlier in the week),” Neverett said, “now that California has shut down indoor dining, hair salons and gyms, taking a step back to where they were in March. Southern California is a hotspot right now, and a couple of really big school districts out there have decided they’re not going back to school in the fall.”

For Neverett, it will basically be a bubble life in a way. He’ll have to be tested, with regular tests for media and staff, before he can even get into Dodger Stadium. He’ll live in a hotel rather than an apartment like he did last year, “where I know there’s not going to be many people, they’ll take care of sanitizing and there will be some other Dodger personnel there. They’ve got us pretty well spread out.

“It’s basically going to be hotel to ballpark and back to hotel. And you basically will have to stay in the bubble as best you can.”

Take out food, have food delivered, hotel food, plus a once-a-day Dodger meal. Games without fans in the stands. It’s going to be something like Neverett has never encountered before.

“It’ll be different for sure,” he said. “It’ll remind me of my days in the minor leagues on a Tuesday night in April.”

Neverett and the broadcast crew won’t travel with the team for road games when things start for “real” later this coming week. They watch the game from a studio with a huge screen and a couple of other secondary feeds for bullpen and defensive shots. “Anything that is possible to see, you’re going to see it,” he said.

Neverett hasn’t been told how many TV or radio games he’ll do, how many pre and post game shows, etc. The Dodgers have asked him and the other broadcasters to be flexible. “I don’t think they know, because they know things are fluid on a daily basis. I’ll just hang loose and whatever they ask me to do, I’ll do.”

And of course he’ll be Zoomin’ for interviews and press conferences. For background info, Neverett will contact broadcasters for the other team as every broadcaster’s number for the NL and AL West teams were distributed. That info is essential for any broadcast. There is no personal contact allowed, Neverett said, with players or staff members.

Does Neverett think baseball should be returning?

“I think, my personal opinion, is we already should have been in the season a couple of weeks,” he said, referring to the previously stalled talks between owners and players. “But it didn’t happen that way.

“I do think there’s a way they can play. We can’t predict what’s going to happen in September and October in certain markets. Because these certainly aren’t (virus) flareups we’re seeing. These are full blown outbreaks. The state of Florida is a mess. Texas is a mess. California is having all sorts of problems, north and south.”

But Neverett has faith. And why not? If the local youths and Silver Knights in New Hampshire can play baseball, they ought to be able to do it in the Major Leagues.

“I think it can be done,”Neverett said, “where the personnel and the players around are kept as safe as possible. There is a way to play in baseball where you’re not on top of each other all the time as you are in basketball and football.”

He hadn’t left New Hampshire since returning to Nashua since mid-March when baseball shut down. Lucky for him, before rentals were banned, he latched on to a cabin in the White Mountains so he and his family could have a retreat, basically away from everything – including the pandemic. In that area, you could almost count the positive tests on two hands.

“We didn’t see too many people,” Neverett said with a chuckle. “We saw a bear and a moose; they were socially

distanced.”

But now it’s a whole different world in L.A. Neverett even adjusted his flight so he wasn’t on one plane for an extended period of time. He ordered new masks.

“It’s definitely going to be different, it’s going to be challenging,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes. … I don’t know how it’s going to end up in the fall, but I’m hopeful we can get through this season without too many people getting sick.”

Life in the New Normal. Stay safe, Tim Neverett.

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or@Telegraph _TomK.

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