INDIANAPOLIS — As he prepared to throw his first pitch, one of the best undecided pitching prospects in the state of Indiana walked off the back of the mound and surveyed the infield. Griffin Lohmann is like most of the pitchers who appeared in the Grand Park Summer League regular-season matchup between The A-Team and The Snapping Turtles on July 23.
Lohmann has a routine. So common. So mundane. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were forced to view it differently. When he set, Lohmann lifted his right pitching hand to his mouth, licked his fingers three times, wiped his pant leg and grabbed the ball out of his glove. And he didn’t even notice.
“It’s a thing I always do just to get some extra grip on the ball,” Lohmann said.
What Lohmann did was legal in the Grand Park College Summer League and, in most contexts, perfectly normal for a baseball player. But the act of putting his fingers in his mouth and then touching a communal ball is, at a minimum, strongly discouraged due to the coronavirus pandemic. It happened at a time when, simply by nature of COVID-19’s severity, sports are scrutinized for their feasibility during the pandemic.
And it’s not just baseball. Lohmann said he picked up the habit from New Orleans Saints and former Purdue star quarterback Drew Brees, who used to lick his fingers before throwing a football but has said he will stop. Habits are prevalent in every sport, and in many cases they go unnoticed.
The return of sports amid the coronavirus pandemic demands near-perfection to work. The Miami Marlins had an outbreak, even with Major League Baseball not allowing players to lick their fingertips or spit. But leagues such as the NBA, WNBA and the NHL — so far — have generally thrived in a bubble-like environment where there’s daily testing and required social distancing and face coverings. The NBA even added a hotline system where members can hold their teammates or competitors accountable. Read more from USA Today.
