What do minor league coaches do without a baseball season? Knights wait with bags packed

Wes Helms keeps his bag packed, ready for the call to return to Truist Field.

While having spare luggage isn’t new for the Charlotte Knights’ first-year manager — he traveled often for 13 years playing in the major leagues — watching his suitcase remain untouched through the middle of June is anything but ordinary.

“I didn’t want to have to repack that stuff and chance forgetting it,” Helms said. “It’s been in that bag since spring training.”

The bag has been untouched in Helms’ Birmingham, Ala., home since mid-March, when the coronavirus pandemic forced him and the rest of the Knights’ staff to hurry home from spring training in Glendale, Ariz.

Helms and fellow first-year Knights coach Mike Daniel have already spent three months with Zoom calls and extra family time, and eagerly await the chance to get their first season underway in uptown with the two Charlotte-area natives’ hometown team.

“It’s kind of tough, you have to recalibrate a little bit,” Daniel said. “Hopefully, we can get back going soon.”

An abrupt ending

Helms hasn’t been to Charlotte in five months.

His last visit was actually his first appearance as Knights manager for his press conference in January. From there, the new staff held a handful of meetings to get to know each other and then they were off to spring training in Arizona.

When the NBA suspended its season March 12, Daniel said he remembers walking into a meeting the next morning unsure what baseball’s next move would be.

Baseball’s initial decision to continue without fans was reversed about an hour after teams met with major league staff, Daniel said. Everyone in Glendale was then urged to return home -- right as the players and new staff started to click.

“Everybody was getting in the groove. Hitters were starting to hit the ball really well, pitchers were feeling good,” Daniel said. “Next thing you know, boom, that was it.”

Helms, looking to avoid long wait times in airport security, drove the 1,700-mile trip home to Birmingham. Daniel was apprehensive about flying in a pandemic, too, and used anything he could find to cover his face for the four-hour flight back to Charlotte.

“I probably looked like Scorpion off of Mortal Kombat,” Daniel said. “I had a T-shirt around my face and nose and wore my sunglasses trying to cover up.”

Homecomings on hold

Accepting his first professional managing job with the Charlotte Knights brought Helms’ baseball career full circle. Having to put his hometown return on hold is the toughest part of the waiting game.

Helms grew up in Gastonia, about 30 minutes from the Knights’ uptown Charlotte ballpark. He graduated from Ashbrook High School in 1994, played against the Knights during his time with the Triple-A Richmond Braves in the 1990s and coached against them as the bench coach for the 2018 Lehigh Valley IronPigs.

After landing the Knights job, Helms, 44, answered phone calls from excited family friends who had watched him play since his 5-year-old T-ball days.

“I was looking so forward (to it),” Helms said. “All these people reaching out to me, ‘can’t wait to come watch you, man’ … My mom and dad’s friends that are 75, 80 years old were going to come watch me.”

Daniel also had plenty of connections to call after landing a job with the Knights. He reached out to his former coaches around the area, including Danny Hignight at Providence High School, Hal Bagwell at Ardrey Kell and Thomas Eaton, who coached him in summer baseball with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Daniel, a 2002 South Mecklenburg graduate who moved to Charlotte from New Orleans in 1997, has stayed involved in the Charlotte baseball community. He watched the Knights’ stadium move from Fort Mill, S.C. to uptown, and when he drives past Truist Field today, Daniel knows that any day a return could be announced.

“To be able to call that my workplace, my office, it’s pretty cool,” Daniel said.

Work from home

Spring training in Arizona put Daniel back in baseball mode. He had grown fond of the smell of the grass and feel of the dirt. Being stuck in his Ballantyne home without a ballpark to go to seems unnatural.

“You feel this time of year,” Daniel said. “I’ve been in baseball for over 30 years. I’m 35 now, and I literally started playing when I was 3. You just sense, ‘OK, I’m supposed to be doing something on the field right now’ because it’s June and it’s what you’re used to doing.”

Weekly Zoom calls have replaced evenings at the ballpark, and topics include everything from performance meetings with position groups to mental skills training with sports psychologists.

Video chatting from home doesn’t come without interruptions. Helms said his dogs, a 10-year-old goldendoodle named Daisy and 7-year-old labradoodle named Honey, will sniff under the door when he’s in his office. Daniel’s 6-year-old daughter Adrian likes to see herself on camera and can be heard singing in the background on occasion.

“The great thing is this has kind of eased us a little bit in the workplace,” Daniel said. “It’s not that big of a deal that your kids get on the camera, and people are a lot more relaxed.”

When he isn’t working with the Knights, Daniel is at home with his wife and young children, homeschooling and watching a constant stream of Netflix cartoons. Helms spends time with his oldest son, Wesley Jr., at a high school baseball field in Birmingham and seeks out any opportunity he can to take his family outside.

Ready to restart

Minor league baseball can’t even begin to consider restarting until the MLB has reached a deal with the MLBPA on the terms of its return. Helms and Daniel said last week they were optimistic with the state of negotiations.

“They’ve had a lot of time to talk some things through,” Daniel said. “I know both sides want to get it done and get back on the field for the fans.”

Helms stays in contact with the Chicago White Sox, the Knights’ major-league affiliate. He knows that time is ticking to sign a deal, but stays ready to jump back to North Carolina as soon as the chance comes up.

“The White Sox have informed us to stay on alert,” Helms said. “It’s going to be one of those things, when they sign the deal, you might be leaving in two days.”

And when his phone rings for a return to Charlotte, Helms has his bag ready.

This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 3:02 PM.