Ex-Phillies pitchers Ben Lively and David Buchanan bracing for South Korean season that could serve as test case for MLB’s future

Five years removed from his last major-league start and half a world away from home, David Buchanan laughs at the idea that he’s back at the center of the baseball universe — if he ever occupied a seat there in the first place.

“I’m not sure what kind of reputation I left in Philly,” the right-hander said by phone Wednesday. “I probably have a better reputation in Allentown than I do in Philly.”

Buchanan, 30, made 35 starts over two seasons (2014-15) for the Phillies during the forgettable Ryne Sandberg era. An early casualty of the organization’s rebuilding project, he pitched in Japan for three years and signed in December with the Samsung Lions of the Korean Baseball Organization.

And Wednesday, while most of the United States slept, Buchanan emerged from a 14-day quarantine, went to a ballpark, dressed in his uniform, and practiced with his teammates.

Just as South Korea has constrained the coronavirus pandemic as effectively as any country in the world, its preeminent baseball league is closer than any other to starting its season. Intrasquad games are ongoing; exhibition play is slated to begin April 21. Players were informed this week that the 10-team league could open its season as soon as May 1, albeit without fans in attendance.

Many challenges must be met before that day arrives.

In Japan, Nippon Professional Baseball planned to begin its season on April 24 until three players on the Hanshin Tigers tested positive for COVID-19 and forced an indefinite postponement. With the virus not yet having reached its apex in the U.S., Major League Baseball is mulling a creative, if not crazy, plan to begin the season at ballparks in the Phoenix area, where players, coaches, and essential personnel would live in isolation, undergo frequent testing, and even trade the close proximity of dugouts for sitting six feet apart in the otherwise empty stands.

Needless to say, the baseball world will be watching Korea.

“I’m guessing people in the States are counting on Korea right now to get their baseball fix.”

“Rumor has it if one player gets it in the KBO, then [the season] will most likely be canceled,” said right-hander Ben Lively, another former Phillies pitcher and Buchanan’s teammate with the Lions. “That’s always been out there. We’ve kept hearing it. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen, but I mean, there’s always a chance.”

South Korean officials have done well to reduce that risk mostly through widespread testing and strict stay-at-home measures.

Through Wednesday, the country confirmed 10,384 cases of coronavirus. But there were only 47 new cases reported on Monday, 47 on Tuesday and 53 on Wednesday, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a far cry from the peak of 909 on Feb. 29.

At that time, Lively and Buchanan were attending the Lions’ spring-training camp in Okinawa, Japan. When flights to Korea were restricted in early March and the KBO delayed the start of the season, players were allowed to travel home. Lively went to Florida, Buchanan to Allentown, where he met his wife while playing for the Phillies’ triple-A affiliate and settled down.

Two weeks later, they were told to rejoin the Lions in Daegu, a city of 2.5 million people in southeast South Korea. They were tested for COVID-19 — “A long Q-tip up your nose; not fun,” Lively said — on the morning after they landed.

Although the results came back negative, Buchanan and Lively were made to self-isolate at their apartments in a downtown Daegu high-rise for two weeks in compliance with government orders.

Buchanan read three books, learned a couple of songs on the guitar, meditated, and even started a journal for his infant son in which he jotted Bible verses and other inspirational quotes. A few floors away, Lively exhausted his Netflix queue, played video games, and worked out with weights and a stationary bike that were provided by the team. They had food delivered from local restaurants and asked to have groceries picked up by their translators, who had to leave the bags at the front door.

“It felt like a more comfortable jail,” Lively said.

But it beat the alternative. Quarantine violators risk imprisonment, according to an April 5 update from the government via the Korea CDC. Lively said he heard foreigners could be deported for running afoul of the mandate.

If that all seems, well, draconian, many South Koreans appeared willing to sacrifice personal liberties and adhere to stay-at-home orders to contain the spread of the virus. While wearing masks to guard against even the common cold isn’t abnormal in Asian cultures, Buchanan said people looked at him “like I was a weirdo” when he put on a mask to go to the supermarket while he was home last month.

Lively also paints a picture of a country that was prepared for a pandemic, too, perhaps because of its experience with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2015. South Korea possessed a large supply of tests that were both available and affordable.

“Testing over here is pretty much free," said Lively, who made 20 starts for the Phillies from 2017 to 2018. "When I was home, my sister got strep throat and they made her get tested for the virus, and it’s not cheap. I think that’s absurd. You want to hype up our medical care, how great it is and everything, and you can’t even do a drive-through with a cotton swab like these people do here? It’s pretty simple.

“They’re taking every precaution they can. Leaving the hospital [after getting tested], there’s like sanitizing spray coming down on all the cars. There’s hand sanitizer everywhere. They’ve got it pretty under wraps. They’re doing as much as they can here, and it’s definitely slowing down."

Buchanan and Lively were tested again last weekend. Again, the tests came back negative.

They finally were able to leave their apartments on Wednesday and go to the ballpark, where all players get their temperature taken upon entering. Masks are omnipresent throughout the city, but unlike a video that recently went viral of Korean players wearing masks on the field during a scrimmage, Buchanan said the Lions aren’t taking those measures.

Likewise, the players are “free to do whatever” away from the ballpark, according to Buchanan, who made one of his first stops at a grocery store. Lively and former Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers infielder Tyler Saladino, the other American on the Lions’ roster, marked the end of their quarantine by dining at a nearby restaurant.

But Lively also noted that players have been made aware of the risks of not continuing to practice social distancing. He said he heard that the positive tests in Japan were triggered after a few of the Hanshin players were out partying. Players in Korea have been warned not to let down their guard.

“If we go to a mall or something, it won’t be good,” Lively said. “Maybe we’ll go get some dinner somewhere, but that’ll be it.”

Said Buchanan: “If anything would happen, I think they would be faster to cancel everything than they would be to [postpone] it. I would be afraid of the spiral that would occur if a player and/or players started testing positive.”

Buchanan is wrestling with bringing his wife, Ashley, and 18-month-old son, Bradley, to Daegu. He said he’s “miserable without them,” but knows they would be tested upon arrival, an unpleasant experience for an infant. They also would be subjected to the 14-day isolation, two more weeks of living apart from him even in the same city.

For now, then, Buchanan talks to his family over FaceTime when he wakes up and before he goes to sleep. It’s the best they can do with a 13-hour time difference.

If the KBO is able to open its season in a few weeks, baseball fans everywhere will want to see more of Buchanan and his teammates, too. The KBO has been a vehicle back to the big leagues for several players, including Washington Nationals first baseman Eric Thames and Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Josh Lindblom. Former Phillies outfielder Aaron Altherr is set to play for the NC Dinos this season after signing a one-year, $800,000 contract.

Half of the league’s teams recently began streaming scrimmages on YouTube. In time, fans will be allowed through the gates. For now, those broadcasts are the closest they will get, while players get used to what Lively described as the “good, old echo” of playing in empty ballparks.

“My stepdad’s son texted me and said, could I let him know if we start streaming the games because he wants to watch some baseball,” Buchanan said. “I’m guessing people in the States are counting on Korea right now to get their baseball fix.”

Not to mention providing a glimmer of hope that other leagues around the world can make successful returns to the field, too.