After "magical" fall, Rizzos adapt to spring of confinement

Mike Rizzo spends his life in motion. If he's not in his office at Nationals Park, he's in the clubhouse meeting with the coaching staff. Or he's on the field watching batting practice from right behind the cage. Or he's on the team charter flying to nearly every road game during a season. Or on the rare occasions he's not with the big league club, he's somewhere else in America watching a top college or high school prospect who's on the Nats' radar for the upcoming draft.

What, though, is life like for the general manager of a baseball team when he can barely leave his house for six weeks and certainly can't watch any baseball being played in person?

"Unlike a lot of GMs, Mike also travels with the team all the time, so this may be the longest stretch of time we've been together in the same spot," said Jodi Rizzo, his wife. "So, yeah, he's a little stir crazy."

Jodi had an idea what she was getting into when she married Mike in November, only a couple of weeks after the Nationals won the World Series. She expected her husband to be consumed with his job 24-7, 365 days a year. She did not expect to be cooped up in their Navy Yard townhouse for months, with nowhere to go.

"We're doing fine," Mike Rizzo said. "We're isolating. The house gets a little small, but we're trying to find ways to keep ourselves busy."

During a wide-ranging video conference interview last week with MASN dugout reporter Alex Chappell and me, the Rizzos talked about life as newlyweds and the wild ride they took together last fall, when some of the biggest moments of their professional and personal lives coalesced into one memorable, if exhausting, stretch.

Jodi, who also worked in the industry for Monumental Sports & Entertainment before recently starting a new job with Bogues Consulting Group, was by Mike's side throughout the Nationals' postseason run. Re-watch any road game from last October, and every time the broadcast cuts to a shot of the longtime GM in his box seats, he's always flanked by his then-fiancée as well as his son Michael, from his first marriage.

Mike Rizzo rarely shows any emotion during games, his face stoic no matter the situation. It's by design, something he learned long ago from his executive assistant, Harolyn Cardozo.

During the most significant moments of the Nationals' postseason run, it took a remarkable amount of composure not to show the world how he really felt.

"Inside, I was losing my mind," he said. "I was just trying to not outwardly express it until the final out of the game."

Rizzo brought up the top of the 10th inning in Game 5 of the National League Division Series, as Howie Kendrick stepped to the plate with the bases loaded.

"I'm feeling as good as I can feel right now without jinxing anything and saying anything out loud," he said. "Perfect guy up. He's going to hit a fastball. He's going to hit it to the right-center field gap. They're going to catch it. And we're going score at least one, maybe even get another guy over to third. I'm mapping this out in my head.

"And he hits the ball, and I say: 'We got it,' thinking that we got that deep sac fly. And then it kept traveling and traveling. And as it keeps going, we're holding hands and I'm squeezing her hand. It was pretty crazy."

Exactly three weeks later, Rizzo didn't have to hold in his emotions anymore. When Daniel Hudson struck out Michael Brantley to end Game 7 of the World Series, he embraced Jodi and Michael, called his father Phil (who would pass away three months later at 90) and then kicked off a long celebration that began in Houston, continued in D.C. and concluded a couple weeks later in Jamaica at his wedding.

With family members, baseball friends and co-workers by his side, Rizzo got married on the beach and was shocked when the resort staff brought out a custom wedding cake in the shape of the Commissioner's Trophy. It was a fitting end to one of the happiest stretches of the 59-year-old's life.

"People can go a whole lifetime and not do what we did in three weeks," Jodi Rizzo said. "Just really, really special. Between the World Series and the parade, and then being able to get our best friends and family down to Jamaica for such a magical weekend to continue the celebration ... it's like we never wanted it to end."

In one respect, it hasn't, because the 2020 season hasn't started yet. Rizzo, like everyone else in baseball, is preparing for every potential scenario that could include an abbreviated season in a variety of locations (or perhaps no season at all).

What keeps him motivated through this unprecedented time? The anticipation of the Nationals' first real game at home with fans in attendance, when they can finally cap their 2019 championship celebration.

"If I bring it up once a day, I bring it up 10 times a day: Soon we're going to have a banner raised," he said. "We're going to have rings on our fingers. It's coming. It's gonna be here. It's not a question of if, but when. And when it happens, it's going to be a glorious day for everybody."

Watch our interview with the Rizzos, and other episodes of "Missing Baseball."