(March 03, 2018 – Crystal Lake, Illinois): The hangover of a 79-loss season and third place finish still looms large as the current crop of Sandgnats stars assemble for spring training.  Players greet each other in the clubhouse as they collectively shake off a longer-than-usual winter break and exchange hushed pleasantries, but the conversations are short and somber, as if taking place within the confines of a funeral home amidst a wake.  

Nelson Anderson involuntarily shakes his head while conducting a quiet conversation with the ‘Gnats newest ace Alfredo Velázquez.  Ricardo Longoria looks aimlessly around the clubhouse, studying the faces he doesn’t recognize before dropping his head to study the floor.  Such is life in the Crystal Lake clubhouse these days after the team failed to make the playoffs for the first time in their existence in 2017.  A mid-winter reunion full of stories, back-slapping, and jokes doesn’t take place this year.  In its stead, the team takes on the appearance of addicts at the beginning of a twelve-step program, assembling to recount what went wrong, how it can be avoided this year, and to ask why so many of their former comrades are now in different cities experiencing a new spring training atmosphere of their own.

The Gnats front office, led by GM Brian Hazelwood closely resembles the locker room.  Following an off-season of unprecedented turmoil, Hazelwood steers clear of the gathered media and instead turns his attention to the players who have come together to form the 2018 version of the Crystal Lake Sandgnats.

Hazelwood, the formerly outgoing and jovial GM of the Gnats, now closely resembles his predecessors.  Brooding, he walks the clubhouse shaking the hands of this year’s squad, intent on avoiding contact with outsiders.  When reporters ask questions, he fails to acknowledge them, offering nothing more than a profile glance as he strides past intently, greeting each player in a perfunctory, business style.  The Sandgnats are a different type of ballclub this year.  Humbled by defeat and depleted by trades, this looks nothing like the group that took the field twelve short months ago.

“Who are these guys?” a young fan clothed in green and beige standing along the first base fenceline says to his father as the 2018 roster takes the field for their first full-squad workout.  Indeed, “who are these guys” seems to be the prevailing question around Crystal Lake heading into 2018.  Gone are stalwarts like Chris Holmes and Pepe Espinosa.  Gone is last year’s Wunderkind award winner Emílio Manuel and long-time centerfielder Jay White, shipped off to Yuma in an unprecedented move.

Their replacements?  Rule five draftees, journeymen, utility guys, fringe starters; certainly not the celebrity-athletes fans in Crystal Lake have grown accustomed to.  Questions hang over the roster even now as rumors of more trades persist.  Will Ron Baldwin get sent to another city as the organization trims payroll?  Will Longoria be dealt mid-year should the team again get off to a slow start?  Is this the last ride for Crystal Lake fixtures Eduardo Molina, Merlin Peters, and the aforementioned Anderson?  The questions are easier than the answers, and the only man who has input on the outcomes of these decisions is far from forthcoming.