#Kyle Higashioka’s simple coronavirus strategy for Yankees’ MLB restart

Hello one last time from Oregon. I’ve been here for over three months now, but it’s time to get back to work. I leave Tuesday for New York, and I’ll be at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday to start summer training.

Those last few days before the season became official, I knew that it was crunch time, when something needed to happen, I was actually pretty nervous for those couple of days. I’m just glad that something got figured out. My agents at Beverly Hills Sports Council were in contact with me a lot, giving me updates. I didn’t reach out too much to our team representative Zack Britton. I tried to give Britt a break. I figured everyone was texting him. He probably was getting inundated with calls and texts. I didn’t want to make that worse.

I was optimistic that we’d have a season, and I guess the optimism definitely paid off. It eliminates a lot of stress when you’re not constantly worried about a negative result happening, even though that’s definitely possible. I always figure if the worst-case scenario is going to happen, then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. There’s no use worrying about it the whole time. I couldn’t be happier that we’re at least getting the chance to start the season, and hopefully we’ll take it through the end.

It’s more or less up to us to try to insulate ourselves by acting as responsibly as we can and trying to keep our distance from people. We should be in a pretty controlled environment once we get to the field. Definitely away from the field, we’re going to have to isolate ourselves. I think if we do the best job we can, hopefully we’ll be fine. On the road, I’m just going to go from the hotel to the field and that’s it, and it’ll be the same thing in New York.

With all of the new rules, it’s definitely going to be different. I think a lot of it is in place for our safety and just to make things work during this weird season. That’s fine. I’m just glad we’re getting the opportunity to get back out there and play.

This shutdown has given many people time to think, and I certainly had more free time than I usually do at this time of year. I guess the only realization I’ve come to is, it’s almost like I can’t believe that something like this, a year this crazy, is happening in my lifetime. Even though throughout the last 100 years of our country’s history, I’m sure we’ve had plenty of years that have been just madness — but I think this is the first year in my lifetime that this chaos is going down. Stuff like this has happened throughout history, though. People in the past have had to deal with it, and we’ll deal with it now.

To anyone who’s been reading this, I really appreciate you following me and keeping up with what’s going on with my life during this whole process. I’m pretty disappointed that we can’t have fans in the stadium. It’s kind of the heartbeat of the team, both at home and on the road. That’s one of the best things about playing in New York, the fans. I hope everyone can safely watch us on TV, and hopefully we’ll put a good product on the field and win another championship.