Tampa Bay Rays bullpen coach Stan Boroski, left, talks with pitcher Jose Alvarado and catcher Jesus Sucre with plate umpire Ryan Blakney, right, against the Seattle Mariners during a baseball game on Sunday, June 3, 2018, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)

Stan Boroski had never looked at the clock as much in his life as he did on March 27.

It was on that day that Boroski was supposed to be beginning his 11th season as the bullpen coach for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Whether it was 10 a.m. when he would have been departing for the ballpark, 12:30 p.m. when he’d have the pitchers out on the field stretching and going through their throwing program, 3:20 p.m. when they would begin to announce the lineups or even 4:30 p.m. when the Rays would be coming to the plate for their first official at-bat of the season, the day became extremely tough to handle.

“I don’t think I quit looking at the clock until it was after 8 when I thought, ‘this is when we should be celebrating our first win of the season in the clubhouse,'” Boroski said. “It was a tough day.”

Instead of going through his normal grind as a MLB coach, the 1981 Buckeye South High School graduate and OVAC Hall of Famer spent that day the same he’s spent so many of late … fishing, working on baseball with his son, Clayton, who is a junior in high school, or putting together a jigsaw puzzle with his wife, Carol.

“Puzzles really aren’t my thing, but we’re currently working on our second 1,000-piece puzzle,” Boroski said. “I’ve done a lot more fishing this time of year than I am obviously used to and the bite is good this time of the year.”

Such is life as Boroski and all of Major League Baseball await word when they can return to work and resume preparations for the season, which is delayed through at least this month because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s taken a little while to grasp the fact that I am shut out of work,” Boroski said. “It’s great to be able to spend more time with my family, but it took a little while to get comfortable doing that because this time of the year is when you’re expecting to be playing.”

Like most professional and college sports, MLB shut down spring training and originally announced a two-week delay to the start of the season in mid March. The Rays actually played their game on Thursday, March 12 because the teams had already arrived at the ballpark before MLB announced its decision.

Before heading to the bullpen that day, Boroski was aware that the NBA had already opted to shut down and many of the major college basketball conference tournaments were being called off.

“We had heard some rumblings, but when we are on the field, we don’t have our cellphones or really access to any kind of information like that, so we weren’t totally sure what was happening with baseball,” Boroski admitted.

Then, Boroski got the news from a fan, who had just gotten an alert on his phone.

“A fan yelled down to me ‘MLB is shutting down spring training starting tomorrow,'” Boroski said. “I yelled back him, ‘you know more than I do.’ But, obviously, we later learned that was accurate, but we had thought or hoped anyway that it was going to be maybe a week or 10 days at the most and then we’d get back at it.”

If only that was the case.

Spring training closed down with the majority of the players and staffs sent home left to wonder.

“It was honestly one of the weirdest feelings I’ve had in baseball,” Boroski, who played collegiate at Ohio University and then in the Brewers system, said. “Everyone’s season ends at some point, but it’s usually in late September or October. That’s supposed to happen. This ending was not supposed to happen like this.”

Indeed.

As to when life begins to get back to normal is anyone’s guess. The same can be said for Boroski, who knows about as much as the fan who yelled to him from the bullpen at this point.

Boroski, however, does firmly believe — in his heart and in his gut — that there will be a baseball season, but he honestly has no idea when it may begin. He believes — at minimum — players, especially pitchers, would need a month of spring training before they could begin competing.

“I would be shocked if there isn’t a season of some length,” Boroski said. “Even if it doesn’t start until the middle of July, I would be shocked. I have no source on this other than me thinking this way. I just believe we will do something as far as a season goes, but the (players) will have to be given time to get ready. Most of the players don’t have (workout) facilities at their houses and rely on the private sector for those things and those are, for the most part, closed.”

Baseball fans can certainly take solace in that, but the fans might not be welcome in the ballpark if and when the sport resumes. That’s something that Boroski hopes can be avoided.

“I believe the fans do affect performance if they’re there or not,” Boroski said. “The energy inside a (stadium) can change things one way or another. I know professional players and coaches are going to do what they do, and I am not sure it would affect the actual outcome of games, but in talking to our players, they seem to think (crowd and noise) helps, so I am going to take their word for it.”

Amid his puzzles, reading, fishing and working with his son, Boroski is still doing some baseball work by keeping in touch with the players.

“Our number one priority is making sure our players and their families are safe,” Boroski said. “We divided up our roster, as a coaching staff, to make sure none of the players were getting overlooked. We’re keeping in touch and the overwhelming message from the players is they can’t wait to get back to playing.”