“Are you going to spring training?”
Like the rock salt drifting through my front door in January, I get that question multiple times every mid-winter, often by the same people.
Just because you cover sports, baseball in particular, for a (modest) living, it’s assumed by the uninformed outsiders that you punch an automatic ticket for Arizona or Florida. Every media outlet, large and small, is perceived to have an unlimited travel budget, no matter what has happened in the economy since 2007.
Well, folks, last time I was in Arizona, the cost for air fare, hotel, and rental car for about 10 days was at least $1,500. And that’s probably squeezing it.
Maybe the outsiders assume you simply snap your fingers, one moment you’re in the frozen Midwest, the next you’re on Country Club Drive in Mesa. Just like Dorothy closing her eyes and wishing she was back in Kansas.
These days, you’re lucky if your employer sends you across a municipal boundary to cover a sports event, let alone travel 1,500 miles. So much has been cut from coverage, but old stereotypes are slow to die even in the face of stark reality.
Spring training is like so many other aspects of baseball – it’s perceived as glamorous from the outside. In reality, the laborious six weeks has one redeeming quality. It’s warm and – mostly – dry. So it’s a stark contrast from the home bases of every non-Sunbelt team (excepting Atlanta this year with the storms hammering that unprepared metropolis).
Otherwise, the camps are just like practices in any other sport. They’re boring, you watch a couple of trends and individuals, you do your interviews, and get out.
I feel for my colleagues working beats for newspapers, online sites, and broadcast outlets for spring training’s duration. When games start, they put in longer hours than during the regular season.
Typically, team clubhouses open around 8 a.m. daily in camp, so the reporter ought to be in the press box by 7:45 a.m. to set up. Many arrive earlier to scan the internet. The locker rooms close about 8:45 in advance of stretching and batting practice. The reporter has only scatter-shot access to the team the rest of the pre-game period.
Then, during the game, reporters are called down into the clubhouse to talk to the starting pitcher after he’s finished or other veterans. So they miss some game action. Them they talk to the manager and other players post-game. By the time they’re done, it’s past 5 p.m., maybe closer to 6 p.m. And if they go to a road game, they’re back at the apartment or hotel even later after fighting traffic. That’s not resort or banker’s hours by any stretch.
In the 13 straight spring trainings I worked from 1995 to 2007, I only did the wire-to-wire routine once, in 2006 to cover the world champion White Sox in Tucson. Two weeks was the most time in any other year.
I felt fortunate. Say five days of getting out of winter, hobnobbing with the big leaguers, is fine. Anything longer gets old quickly.
Yet escaping the frozen wastes has a flip side. I’m amazed at my colleagues standing around in the direct, southern-latitudes sunlight for much of batting practice. Did they make a deal with the devil to automatically tan or not get burned?
Chicago sports-talk gabber Terry Boers once called me “White Castle,” but for a different connotation than my definition. I’m so pale-faced I’m immediately zapped by UV rays. I could not stand more than 15 minutes in the Arizona sun without burning, forcing me to liberally slather on sunscreen with at least 30 strength rating on all exposed skin prior to leaving the hotel each morning. Even with such protection applied, sitting in shade or outside under clouds can be misleading.
Then there’s the accommodations. The big boys with the big budgets stay in nice condos. But there were years only part of my travel was expensed. I had to be creative to return home with a profit. Otherwise, if I did not go, quite a bit of magazine work would have been assigned to another writer who had his expenses covered by his large outlet – and there was no assurance I’d get that work back. Or I could not get season-preview interviews for my syndicated radio show “Diamond Gems.”
Several years I stayed with my cousin in south Phoenix. The implication was the accommodations were gratis. But one day he suddenly came up with the announcement of $100-some per week for groceries and water bill – he was out of work.
Two years later, I was asked to watch his house and his cats while he honeymooned in the Grand Canyon. I would stay about five more days after he returned – he said no problem with the new bride. But when my kin came back, he abruptly ordered me to leave, no explanation. Fortunately, the sports editor back home took pity and somehow appropriated a few bucks to pay for a hotel.
In 2006, the two newspapers to whom I contributed White Sox stories put me up in what appeared to be a converted garage near the University of Arizona. The budget apparently did not allow for a standard condo or hotel. Complete with a barbecue outside, the place seemed cozy as one large room until I found the TV only got a couple of fuzzy channels. Cable was not part of the bargain.
Best of all was the bathroom, tucked away in a small alcove. The toilet itself was in a cubbyhole within the alcove. There were only a couple of inches between the bowl and each wall. At least the toilet flushed on command and did not back up. The bathroom was not large enough for a mirror, which instead was placed above the kitchen sink. That’s where I shaved and applied the sunscreen.
Meanwhile, dealing with big leaguers, past and present, on a one-on-one basis was always the biggest attraction of spring training, counterbalancing the long hours and meaningless games.
Sometimes the interaction was too lively. In 1996, in the old HoHoKam Park, I talked to one Cub briefly and put my notebook down nearby. When I went to retrieve it, the notebook was gone. Jose Hernandez and Sammy Sosa sat nearby. “Don’t look at me!” protested Hernandez. Sosa then pointed to the top of a locker, where the as-yet unidentified prankster had stashed the notebook.
A decade later, I walked onto the practice fields at the White Sox complex. Ozzie Guillen spotted me. “You’re a (bleepin’) Cubs fan!” he hollered in his Spanglish.
A whole gaggle of pitchers looked around to wonder “What gives?” Never as quick as Johnny Carson, I somehow retorted, “When are you going to do your book with me?” If Guillen thought I did too many Cubs-oriented books, how ‘bout co-authoring a Sox book, “Ozzie on Ozzie,” that was sure to sell? Guillen greeted me with the “(bleepin’) Cubs fan!” several times in ensuing years and I always shot back with the book idea. Such repeated reminders never stuck with Ozzie, who eventually did his book with Chicago columnist Rick Morrissey.
The last spring training in ‘07 was the best. A good friend is Cubs Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins, who for years set up a booth for his foundation at HoHoKam and other Arizona ballparks where the Cubs played. I made arrangements to sell my book, “Entangled in Ivy,” out of his booth since fans would flock to see a Cooperstown enshrine, and thus I had a built-in audience to pitch sales. Fergie would get a cut of the proceeds. I made some good coin as a result, but priceless were the visits of Lee Smith and Randy Myers to the booth.
Those were all funny guys when they got together. I haven’t stopped laughing to this day. And when you think of spring training, better to laugh than cry…or fall asleep.
