Pirates unmasked in dugout, bullpen after team reaches 85% vaccination threshold

With an outgoing personality leading a team short on proven star players, Derek Shelton, in part, was hired to serve as the public face of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

On Friday, more than 18 months after he was named manager, Shelton’s face was finally on display during a game.

At last, Shelton — along with the rest of the Pirates’ staff and idle players — have been unmasked.

The Pirates hit the 85% threshold of vaccination among its “Tier I” personnel, triggering the loosening of coronavirus-related restrictions per MLB protocol.

“I think (those who) spend enough time around me know that communication is a big part of what I feel and a big part of leadership,” Shelton said via video conference call before Friday’s game at the Milwaukee Brewers. “And sometimes you cannot do it with the mask on.”

Among the covid precautions MLB teams have been saddled with over the past two seasons that are subject to easing at the 85% vaccination plateau, the mask mandate is the most visible to fans. Over the 60-game season last year and the Pirates’ first 61 games of 2021, Shelton, assistant coaches and training and other staff were required to have on face coverings in the dugout and bullpen and while coaching bases.

But the unmasking might not be the most embraced of the eased protocols among players and staff. They had been prohibited from numerous routine daily activities (especially while on the road) such as card games, eating at a restaurant or sharing a cab.

“When you’re in the middle of a six-month season and you cannot do that, it’s hard to feel like you’re kind of trapped in your room at the hotel, so to speak, which has basically been the case for us for a couple years,” general manager Ben Cherington said last week in hinting that Friday’s news was coming.

“Some of the benefits inside the clubhouse, resources like saunas and game rooms, things that players had a way of either recovering or enjoying themselves, are coming back.”

But from a fan’s perspective, television shots into the dugout that showed half-covered faces probably were the most discernible reminder of the pandemic. As the rest of the country has become vaccinated and ballparks have begun to fill with fans who have ditched their masks under most circumstances, the Pirates still had been among a dwindling number of teams still required to mask up.

No more.

“There are still protocols that have to be abided by for us,” Shelton said. “It’s not just a free and clean slate. … But in the dugout, you will see no more masks.”

Friday was known ahead of time as the big day because it, apparently, came 14 days after the shots went into the final of the arms of the players who brought the number to 85%. The 14-day period is in adherence to CDC guidelines for “fully vaccinated.”

Shelton had spent his entire managerial career addressing his team and conversing with players and staff members while wearing a mask.

Shelton also was among the first managers last season to come onto the field to confront an umpire. The scene of Shelton and umpire Jordan Baker cautiously keeping a distance while having an argument last July went viral. Baker was walking toward Shelton as he hurriedly was affixing a disposable paper mask to his face.

“Maybe I’ll still just wear (a mask) out there still anyways,” Shelton joked about his next argument with an umpire, “so you can’t hear or read what I’m saying.”

Shelton said the human-to-human need to see each other’s faces when having a discussion has, at times, limited his ability to connect with players. He allowed that there have been occasions in which a talk was serious or important enough that he took the mask down, citing a Wednesday in-game mound meeting with Tyler Anderson as an example.

“I think it’s important for them to see my face and see where I am at, and for me to see their face,” Shelton said. “ … and that’s why I am appreciative that we got to 85.”

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