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In a year filled with unexpected occurrences, professional sports looked much different than in any other year in memory.  As the conversation with former Eastern Illinois baseball player and current Milwaukee Brewers hitting coach Andy Haines began; he quickly interjected a thought that summed up this season.
 
"What goes under appreciated is the fact of how significant it is that we are having a World Series this year," said Haines.  "For the industry as a whole and even myself, I don't think I understood the importance of it.  The amount of credit the players deserve.  The medical staff, the athletic trainers, the players; so many people made sacrifices.  I always say it's a player's game, they make the world go round.  What they went through this year has not really been spoken about much. It was much different.  It was not the big league environment by any means."
 
Haines wrapped up his second season as the hitting coach with the Brewers and his third year as a coach at the Major League level.  Now back in his home in the Nashville, Tenn., area, he reflected on how a normal year quickly turned into a new normal.
 
Like every other spring, pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training in Arizona and Florida in mid-February followed quickly by the remainder of the team.  For the Brewers, their spring training opened like every other year from their home in Phoenix, Ariz.
 
Haines admits that in spring training, coaches can get so focused on the task at hand, that they are in a bubble that keeps just about everything not baseball related at bay.
 
"Everyone has used the term bubble lately, but in spring training we are in a bubble.  As a staff member, the volume of players we have in camp and what that takes from an organizational standpoint, in terms of what you're preparing for; it's a monster.  You are there early and leave late, so often times you don't really know what's going on in the world."
 
Spring training games began as they normally do for the Brewers this year with the team completing 15 games in the spring before the sudden shutdown.  It all happened very quickly.
 
"It hit us pretty quickly.  We had a meeting with our medical team because we were just seeing it on TV and wondering what this is all about.  They met with us and gave us some precautions.  It wasn't a major thing or major announcement.  Literally, the next day we had a meeting and within 24-to-48 hours we were home.  Once they did that, our manager Craig (Counsell), said this will not be a 2-to-3 week hiatus, we are looking at months.  You go from just full steam ahead of preparing for this seven month season that is in front of us to just this uncertainty of what just happened, all in a matter of 2-to-3 days."
 
For Haines, it meant some unexpected time with his family.  When his children were younger, his wife used to bring them to Spring Training, but as they began school, he now sees them for Opening Day and as much as possible prior to the school year ending.  So being at home in March and April was a little bit of a blessing.
 
"I got to be a dad and grill out in good weather;  these are things that I had no idea real humans lived like.  We even had a dinner on Eastern Sunday and my wife asked when the last time I did that. My response was, 'probably high school'."
Eventually sports at the professional level did make a return.  First with professional soccer overseas, then leagues like the NBA and NHL in the United States.  Major League Baseball was a little slower to return as team owners and the players association worked through several different plans and issues. 
 
In the end, baseball set a return date for late July with teams given three weeks to prepare for the year.  With many players already locked into leases in Milwaukee, the organization decided to do its "Summer Training" in Milwaukee which in and of itself created some obstacles.
 
"One major difference between doing training in Milwaukee as opposed to Arizona was that you still have a high volume of players, but you only have one field.  In spring training you have a half field, several practice fields and the stadium available to use.  You can get so much accomplished.  For this year, we had to do it small groups, so as a staff member we were there from early morning until late at night.  I joked that it took me back to my start in college coaching, with 4-on-1 workouts where players came for an hour at a time, but I was there for all four hours.   We didn't get to play outside competition, so we had to try to ramp up the guys to get ready with live at-bats and simulated games."
 
The protocols surrounding the team also became different for everyone associated with Major League Baseball as the season came closer.  Based on sheer numbers of players, a contained bubble, like fans saw with the NBA and NHL wasn't feasible.  That is not to say that safety was not at the forefront of everyone's mind.
 
"Some of the players had leases in Milwaukee so they stayed at those places, but many players, coaches and staff stayed at a team hotel.  The hotel setting was much different, lots of restrictions, really no interaction and team wide protocols.  You couldn't go out to eat at a restaurant.  I know this sounds silly but if you wanted a cup of coffee at Starbucks, you needed to go through the drive-thru.  If you stopped for gas, you couldn't go inside and buy a Diet Coke.  Guys made a ton of sacrifices.  Teams and players were very stringent and still to this day I'm not even sure how those outbreaks happened on other teams.  There's not a guy who thinks any of those teams did anything wrong, it's just the way of the world this summer."
 
Another sacrifice that was made at stadiums around the nation to help protect the game was the policy to not allow fans to attend games.  Haines says the lack of fans did make things much different, but where it hit home for him was during the series between the Chicago Cubs and Brewers.
 
"Where it hit me the most was when the Cubs played the Brewers in Milwaukee.  That is something special because there are so many Cubs fans that make the drive up, that it feels like a home game for both teams.  Every time something happens, the place goes wild. Those games this season where we played the Cubs, were borderline depressing after seeing it so electric.  I'm watching these games with some fans in the stands now, but during our season it was dead silent.  Not even one usher in the ballpark, it was eerie."
 
As the season wore on, players and coaches became somewhat familiar with the new protocols and how to adjust to them.  Haines notes that some players did do better than others, with a few surprising twists.
 
"The dynamic that was noticeable through the league was the young players.  Rookies and young players played really well.  They get this jolt of adrenaline of being in the big leagues for the first time.  A couple of staff members with previous experience in the big league said that  it will be interesting when they do walk out in front of 40,000 people and look up at the upper deck, to see if they can perform under that pressure."
 
"Now, I look back and you can see across the league and it wasn't just in Milwaukee, but our whole division.  We had so many really good players that did not play well offensively and you start to ask why – what are the underlying factors.  It wasn't isolated to one team.  So many MVP type players that had established routines that struggled mightily as those routines got taken away from them."
 
Routines are a part of baseball.  The routine of a game day, of how you travel, even how you eat a team meal.  All of those had to be adjusted this season due to safety protocols.   Still at the end of the day, the Brewers found themselves in the playoffs as one of eight teams in the expanded National League playoffs.
 
"It was an emotional day because it was in 60 games.  I said it is not a major league season because what is sacred and special about a Major League season is the 162.  That is a ton of games.  It's seven months.  You have to be good for such a long period of time.  You can't trick a major league season.  From an individual standpoint, it's a 60-game stretch.  From a team standpoint, I said whoever wins this thing should be remembered forever.  The challenges they had to overcome, just special.  It was really a celebration of what we persevered through.  Obstacles every day.  The game / season didn't cooperate with us, but we never gave in.  I felt like the game rewarded us in the end because we didn't give in, and did it the right way every day.  It was a reward for our players."
 
Haines is one of four former Eastern Illinois baseball players coaching in the Major Leagues who could all tell a similar story this season.  He was one of three that helped his organization reach the playoffs as Kevin Seitzer is the hitting coach for the Atlanta Braves and Derek Johnson is the pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds.   The fourth coach is Tim Bogar, who helped the Washington Nationals win the World Series in 2019 but the team did not make the playoffs this season. 
 
Another former EIU player and Haines brother, Kyle, is currently the Director of Player Development for the San Francisco Giants.  With no minor league season this year, he spent most of his year at the alternate site serving as a liaison with the major league club.
 
Haines is proud to be a part of the small fraternity of coaches from EIU that have made it to the professional level.
 
"I'm extremely proud of it.  My high school coach Monty Aldrich played at Eastern Illinois for Coach Skip McDevitt and he gave me hope that it could happen one day for me.  I'm closest with Derek Johnson as we have crossed paths at several places and both live in the Nashville area.  I introduced myself to Kevin Seitzer last year when we played and Tim Bogar and I have some mutual friends.  Also when I was coming up coaching in the minors I was managing the Triple-A team in New Orleans and I met Sean Payton.  He was awesome to talk to about Eastern and coaching."
 
Now a few weeks removed from the 60-game sprint, Haines looks back on the season that will be etched in the history books and thinks about some of the highs and lows from the season.
 
He says probably one of the lowest moments was when he was ejected at a game for arguing balls and strikes, a story that made a few headlines.
 
"I hate that a microphone catches everything.  I don't apologize for who I am.  It takes a lot, this is not a hobby.  We are coaching at the highest level and this is our life, and you get into it and I'm fighting for my guys.  With no fans in the stands, it happened all over the league, and I hate that it was caught on microphone."
 
The highlight he said came just a few weeks ago as the Brewers traveled to Los Angeles to play the Dodgers in the opening round of the playoffs. 
 
"There is an aura of being at Dodger Stadium and playing against the Dodgers.  It takes me back to the 1980's, those epic playoff games.  The Dodgers are a really good team.  We were there for two days and staying by the Staples Center, it's L.A.  I'm proud of so many people, the trainers and medical staff; what they went through every day.  Our manager, staff, what they sacrificed every day.  It was not how we wanted it to end, but making the playoffs and being in L.A. at the end was a highlight."