Don’t tell Jack McCormick the whole idea of flying to a destination the day of the game is good for somebody’s sleep patterns. As the former Red Sox traveling secretary will tell you, such ventures are exactly what cause people in his profession the most sleepless nights.
McCormick was called upon to help the Red Sox live the same sort of life the Patriots are finding themselves in Monday — flying to their next opponent’s venue just hours before actually playing the game.
“Everything was rushed,” McCormick remembered. “There was a lot of stress due to the worrying of whether we would make it or not. I knew we would make it but it was just whether or not we could stay on schedule.”
For the Patriots, the execution was unavoidable thanks to the COVID-19 testing results which wasn’t going to be officially in until Monday morning, giving the go-ahead to play Monday night against the Chiefs in Kansas City.
The Red Sox? They had a choice.
The first time McCormick remembered the Sox doing what virtually no team does — flying out the day of the game — was on Sept. 1, 2003 when Grady Little’s team had a one-game series in Philadelphia after playing in New York the night before. But that was less than a one-hour flight, making the strategy seem fairly reasonable. (The Red Sox beat the Phillies, 13-9.)
But the next occasion was, to be kind, ill-advised.
Using advice from “sleep doctors” the Red Sox front office determined that it would be a good idea for the team to punctuate its July 2015, four-game series in Anaheim (a sweep by the Angels) with a good night sleep in the Westin In Costa Mesa. The plan was to wake up the next morning, utilize an escort from the California Highway Patrol and fly out of Long Beach for the Sox’ game in Houston starting at 7 p.m.
“I was hoping and praying we didn’t had a mechanical on the plane,” McCormick remembered. “That would have really screwed us up. It wasn’t bad.”
As the Red Sox later found out, there were a few things that weren’t accounted for.
While everything went about as smoothly as possible in terms of the transportation to Minute Maid Park, arriving at just about 3 p.m. local time, there were important pieces of the equation that weren’t quite on time, such as the uniforms.
The image of Wade Miley walking out to field to warm-up in a John Deere hat is lasting one.
Many of the players also didn’t have proper time to get the treatment needed due to the time crunch.
The result were three straight losses to the Astros, and ultimately Major League Baseball stepping in to overrule the sleep doctors when it came to future travel arrangements.
For the Patriots, this is far from apples to apples. They were three-hour flights that left fairly early in the morning, with the team gaining an hour due to the time change. But the chaos did bring back memories, albeit some those involved in that day of travel back on July 21, 2015 probably want to forget.
“It was just a little bit of worry,” McCormick said, “that’s all.”