ST. LOUIS -- Mike Shildt has been around baseball all his life, from his days as a kid in the Orioles clubhouse to now, as the Cardinals manager. He’s experienced a lot, and he’s used those experiences to help him with each situation that greets him as a big league manager.

But a global pandemic shutting down sports? You can’t really prepare for that.

Still, Shildt is leaning on his past experiences and his values to manage in this uncertain time. He relies on communication, with his players, staff and the Cardinals front office. He stays organized, from planning out his day to the players’ workouts. And he keeps things in perspective, focusing on his relationships while not forgetting what the world is going through -- even if he misses baseball every day.

“Just a different set of circumstances,” Shildt said. “It’s really ultimately about organization and communication, and I just do that in a fluid environment now. But the first thing is just an awareness of where we are. ... Like most people, there’s been hard days. You think past the baseball part, you just look at where our world is. Our country and the whole planet. We’re in a tough spot and people are hurting. You have to try to have empathy for that.”

Shildt has found ways to enjoy the unexpected free time before the season starts. He married Michelle Segrave on March 6, the Cardinals’ first off-day of Spring Training. They figured their first chance at a honeymoon would come in the offseason, but now they’ve had over a month to spend together at their Florida home near the Cardinals complex. Mike, Michelle and Michelle’s two daughters have enjoyed the Florida sun, played lots of Monopoly, started to get into Scrabble and have played the occasional card game.

“Michelle and I and the girls have been able to spend some quality time together, so that part of this whole craziness has been a blessing,” Shildt said.

In between the time he spends with family and his evening walks with Michelle, Shildt works. He said he typically spends a couple of hours every day on the phone with players, staff or people in the industry. Last week, the Cardinals had a team-wide Zoom call to go over plans and stay connected.

And much like players are trying to keep their bodies in baseball shape, Shildt is keeping his managerial mind in shape. He gets his baseball fix by watching old games and managing along with them.

“With baseball, I just miss it,” Shildt said. “I miss our guys, our staff -- Opening Day was hard for me. Both of them, the Opening Day we would have had in Cincinnati and the home opener, you know how special that is. But my mindset has been more grateful of what I do have and trying to contribute and stay available for the positive side of it.”

There’s no blueprint for managing a baseball team in a time when there’s no baseball being played, but Shildt has established a routine with his coaches and players. He reaches out to every player who was in camp at least once a week, either through calls, texts, Zoom or a program called Teamworks that the Cardinals use to communicate. Shildt and his coaching staff have at least one Zoom call a week, and now they’re starting to branch back into the smaller groups of coaches, like hitting, pitching and position player coaches. He stays in contact with president of baseball operations John Mozeliak about the logistical side of when baseball returns, like the potential for expanded rosters.

The best way to describe where players are in their workload is “January mode,” Shildt said, where they’re not ramped up like they were in Spring Training, but they could get to that point with a few weeks of work. When Major League Baseball first shut down Spring Training and players dispersed to their homes across the country, Shildt focused on making sure everyone was healthy rather than planning workouts right away. Coming up on the seven-week mark since that day, now Shildt said the team has begun to increase the baseball focus.

“Now we’re in that mode of getting the juices flowing again,” Shildt said. “Clearly, we don’t have any idea of when we’re going to start, but we’re confident that we are. So we’re starting to think about where players are physically, as far as what they’re able to do, and what their capabilities are.

“We feel like we’re getting close to introducing some of those things again now that we feel like players are in a good spot as far as the safety of their families and that sort of thing. Everybody’s got a better head around what we’re dealing with and how life looks now, so this is sort of phase two.”