McAdam: Chaim Bloom sits and waits for his first season at the helm to begin

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.'' Baseball Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby.

Chaim Bloom knows it could be worse.

While he awaits baseball's pandemic shutdown to end, it's not winter, especially since Bloom is waiting out the pandemic in St. Petersburg with his wife and two young sons.

But it's not very fun, either. Like most of us, Bloom is confined to home, even if the weather is warmer where he quarantines. There's a decided ''Groundhog Day'' feel to his life, as he and his wife plow through the day, juggling professional and patenting responsibilities while battling boredom.

For the newly-installed chief baseball officer, each day is the same. There are no contract negotiations to finish, and with rosters frozen, no trades to be made. The amateur draft will take place next month, but in a drastically reduced fashion. And with no college or high school games being played, Bloom can't even cross-check his own organization's scouting reports.

When asked to describe his daily work flow for the past six weeks, Bloom couldn't stifle a chuckle.

"I'm not sure if you could say that there really is a work flow, to be honest,'' Bloom told BostonSportsJournal.com. "with two working parents and two small children in the house. We make it work on a daily basis, but I don't know that there's necessarily any flow to it. It's a constant juggling act. There have definitely been some nice things about being around my family so much, especially after a winter where, I didn't see them very much (as his wife and children remained in Florida while Bloom worked out of his Fenway office). I probably spent more time away from them than I have in any time in my career. So it's been nice to be with them, although these aren't the circumstances we would have wanted.



"From a work standpoint, I think we've all been trying to figure that out because we're all used to the rhythm of the season and kind of having an idea of what that means for you. So we're all figuring that out anew, in a situation we've never been in. Then you layer on top of that, I'm new to the organization and still building relationships.''

Bloom had the luxury of three months in Boston and then another five or six weeks of spring training to acclimate himself to his staff and colleagues. But now reduced to splendid isolation, he's attempting to maintain and advance those newly-formed relationships via phone and Zoom calls.

"Through that communication,'' he said, "we've been figuring out A) how we can make sure we're prepared when we are able to play and then B) how we can work out to make progress on some of the goals we have that aren't dependent on there being baseball -- how can we continue to improve, continue to get better, to help our staff develop themselves while we're shut down.

"Obviously, there's a lot of limitations on that because we're unable to play and we're really unable to congregate, to travel. But there are still ways we're able to help each other succeed and we're trying to spend a lot of time focusing on that.''

Bloom and others in the Baseball Operations department have been recommending helpful books, articles and podcasts to fellow staffers.

"It's something we usually wouldn't have time to do, so we're making sure to share ideas,'' he said. "And bigger picture, what this at least does is give us a little bit of a chance to step back and to look under the hood at the different areas of the organization and say, 'OK, are there processes that we can improve?' I don't want to get into too much detail on that, but we've tried to use this time to take a look at those.

"And as someone new to the organization, hopefully I can provide the benefit of fresh eyes and we at least have the time to do that right now. It's not happening in the same way as it would if we were playing, because obviously there's a lot of things we can't do. But we can still talk about how we operate, or the things we might like to do differently or the things we might like to explore that could advance us.''

From a personal standpoint, Bloom has attempted to further familiarize himself with the organization's minor league prospects. The shutdown came just as he hoping to spend some time in spring training watching players in his own system, so he's resorted to watching video, reading more detailed internal scouting reports and communicating with minor league personnel.

"It's a little frustrating because obviously there's no substitute for getting to see them,'' he said. "But I've been trying to do that and the conversations (with minor league coaches and instructors) have been helpful on that front.''