The assignment for the week-from-Sunday newspaper was to write about my favorite spring-training memory from the past 18 years as a major league beat writer, covering the Braves for a more than a decade and, before that, the Marlins.
But I can’t do it.
As much as I’ve tried, I can’t narrow it to a favorite memory – or two, or three -- from the years covering baseball for six or seven weeks each February and March, before the nine-month grind of a regular season that runs through September. There’s too many memories, and the more I think about it the more my list grows as the mental cobwebs recede and incidents come back to me, some vivid and others vague but nonetheless pleasant.
So I tried to trim away the fat and come up with a reasonable list of what I remembered most from springs under the Florida sun -- on backfields, in ballparks, standing at batting cages, waiting in clubhouses, and driving rental cars with floorboards filled with coffee cups and empty, grease-stained paper bags, while The Replacements, The Clash, Hank or Cash played (loudly) on the stereo.
Several entries at the front of my list came during the Jason Heyward Spring of 2010, when the then-20-year-old phenom, who'd never played a game in the majors and only a few above Double-A, stole the show all spring by hitting more towering home runs than any of us had seen during batting practice. These were epic blasts over the right-field wall at Braves camp, breaking windows and side mirrors on the cars in the team officials' lot. Not that any of them cared, because repairing a window was a minor inconvenience compared to the rush he was providing everyone.
This was not something you saw every day or, for that matter, every decade. He hit a majestic homer onto a building beyond right field during a road game against the Tigers that people who were there in Lakeland will probably never forget. A monster shot.
But as much as anything else, what I remember about spring training are just all the routine days when the weather is perfect, temp in the 70s and the humidity still low for Central Florida, and most players, coaches and managers still relaxed and not stressed about the upcoming season and final roster cuts. Those are the times I dig most. Conversations with guys like Chipper Jones and John Smoltz, Cliff Floyd and Mark Kotsay, Bobby Bonilla and Kevin Millar, Matt Diaz and Martin Prado. The off-color humor, the off-the-record stories that are told and can’t be repeated publicly. So many of those.
Or, just sitting in a dugout while there's still dew on the grass and the groundskeepers watering the infield. Bobby Cox comes shuffling into the dugout, smiling as his steel spikes click-clack across concrete and he greets everyone with a warm smile before sitting between a couple of writers. Bobby answering questions about this kid Heyward and how a ball off his bat sounds like it did off the bat of Hank and the Mick and not many others. And how that reminds him of the time the Mick, Mickey Mantle, Cox's former Yankees teammate, did this or did that and … damn, as I write this I realize again what a privilege it was to be part of all those storytelling sessions and get daily lessons from the human baseball encyclopedia that was Cox.
The only other manager who continued to wear steel spikes was Jim Leyland, who managed the Marlins for two years (1997-1998) and gave those of us who covered the team then more memories and stories than any adult should every reasonably expect to have from any two-year period of his or her life. Leyland with a cigarette or a cigar, sometimes both at once -- seriously, he occasionally doubled-fisted nicotine -- his feet up on his desk, wearing no pants after games, just jersey and stirrup socks and his stretched-out sliding shorts that looked more like long underwear cut off at the knees.
Leyland spilling forth with often crude, usually hilarious stories, most of which can never be written in a family newspaper. Or a magazine. But a bunch of them did show up in a book about the ’97 World Series season, a book that really frosted Leyland’s rear end and made him paranoid every time he talked to us the following year, but still didn’t stop him from sharing more such stories. He couldn’t stop himself, thankfully for us.
It’s the final days of ’98 spring training, after the Marlins blew up their World Series roster, trading star pitchers and replacing them with kids not ready for the big leagues. Leyland takes a drag off a cigarette, lowers his voice and says to a few of us, “Off the record? We are going to get slaughtered.” (We laughed.) “I’m serious,” he said. And they did, losing 108 games a year after winning the World Series.
So many days like that, I could write a book about it. Maybe I will, but probably not till I’m done covering ‘ball.
Lot of good times interspersed with long work days at spring training, work days (and nights) that have gotten longer and longer for writers since we started filing stories to the Internet and adding blogs and Twitter and other social media to the regular print-reporting duties.
• Some other things that break up the monotony for me, or at least used to: Dodgertown. Loved that place in Vero Beach. Was like stepping back in time, from the moment you pulled up and saw the "Welcome Back to Dodgertown" signs and "Wecome Home" banner they hung across the road for players. Many of the younger ones still stayed in the barrack-style dormitories on the grounds of that great old complex. Hated when the Dodgers moved their spring home to Arizona a few years ago. No more trips to Dodgertown, which has been without a big-league ballclub since then….
Late-morning motorcycle ride down I-4 to Lakeland to cover Braves-Tigers at the old-school Joker Marchant Stadium in the Tigertown complex. Only ballpark I know of that has designated motorcycle parking right next to the ballpark entrance….
Driving over the causeway from Tampa to Clearwater for games against the Phillies or the Blue Jays (in Dunedin, just a 10-minute drive from the Phillies ballpark in Clearwater). When you’ve been land-locked a while, it’s rejuvenating to drive across that low causeway with sunshine reflecting off water on each side of the road, the white-sand beaches looking pristine at mid-morning….
And just a couple other things, while I’m thinking back and getting all nostalgic on ya.
The Gary Sheffield Procession: Can't remember the whys and wherefores of this particular incident, because there always seemed to be some sort of issue swirling around Sheff during his Marlins years, usually in relation to his contract. All I remember is that on this February day in the mid-'90s, he was showing up for spring training at Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Fla., at least a week later than the rest of the Marlins.
He was, in fact, taking it right up to the deadline that he and the Marlins had agreed to for him to report. Unlike today, when most players report on or before their team’s reporting date, back then there were always a few star players around baseball who waited to report on the latest date they were required to under the collective bargaining agreement – usually just because they could, or because they were expressing displeasure over something.
Anyway, that morning’s workout had long since ended and most players were gone for the day, and we were told that Sheffield would arrive by a certain hour that afternoon. That time came and went, no Sheff sighting. But soon thereafter, someone spotted from the pressbox a procession of 5-6 gleaming automobiles approaching from a mile or two away, the afternoon sun reflected off the buffed and waxed paintjobs and chrome wheels as they drove down the two-lane road that curved through what was then little more than a wide-open cow pasture west of Melbourne, Fla.
It was Sheffield and his entourage, who had all driven across the state from his home in Tampa. At least a couple of those car trunks were probably filled with Sheff’s ever-present Louis Vuitton luggage. Sheff was a dapper dude, even during spring training.
A few of us beat writers – I worked for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel -- raced down to the clubhouse to chronicle his arrival, and Sheffield walked through the door, resplendent as ever. His boys turned around and drove back to Tampa. Sheff had arrived. For the Marlins, and us writers, spring training could officially begin.
Drinking and writing: Before I tell you this, keep in mind this was a different era, about 17-18 years ago. I was covering the Marlins at Space Coast Stadium, which, as I said above, was in the middle of nowhere, almost nothing else built around it in the planned community of Viera (which has since changed drastically, with hundreds of big houses, big-box retailers and other establishments). At the time, it was possible to drive from the stadium to the hotel I stayed in across I-95 at about 7 p.m. without passing a single car.
In that very different era, the Marlins had a large, glass-front cooler in the back of the pressbox. And one of the ballpark sponsors was either a beer company or beer distributor. Anyway, the six-foot-tall cooler, which looked like one you might see in a convenience store, was filled with soft drinks and beer. A lot of beer. And it was free.
And so, after the day’s Grapefrut League game was over and we’d done our interviews and repaired to the pressbox to write our stories, another writer, Dan Graziano of the Palm Beach Post, and I would stop at the cooler and grab a longneck bottle of beer before we sat down to write. I don’t want to talk out of school or play fast-and-loose with my fading memory in regards to Dan, but as for me, I clearly remember making a few more trips back to that cooler over the next couple of hours while writing my feature story and daily notebook.
Did I mention, this was an entirely different era? One long since passed. Just want to be clear on that.
Long story short, our end of the pressbox sometimes looked like a tabletop in a bar by the time we filed our stories and turned off the pressbox lights, the last guys to leave the premises.
Spring training has changed. A lot.
What hasn’t changed are the sounds – the crack of the bat during BP, the sound of baseballs hitting gloves as dozens of players warm up before a workout, the national anthem being sung before games. And the smells – pine tar in the dugout and by the batting cage, hot dogs and sausages cooking on grills at concession stands two hours before the game, coffee brewing in the clubhouse, suntan lotion on fans in the front row.
And that Florida sunshine. That hasn’t changed.
It’s time for spring training, folks. Pitchers and catchers report Monday.
That means Opening Day is only about seven weeks away.
Bring it on.
• OK, let's close this with a tune from the mighty Clash, which you can hear by clicking here.
"THE CARD CHEAT" by The Clash
Here's a solitary man crying, "Hold me."
It's only because he's a-lonely
If the keeper of time runs slowly
He won't be alive for long!
If he only had time to tell of all of the things he planned
With a card up his sleeve, what would he achieve?
It means nothing!
To the opium den and the barroom gin
In the Belmont chair playing violins
The gambler's face cracks into a grin
As he lays down the king of spades
But the dealer just stares
There's something wrong here, he thinks
The gambler is seized and forced to his knees
And shot dead
He only wanted more time
Away from the darkest door
But his luck it gave in
As the dawn light crept in
And he lay on the floor
From the Hundred Year War to the Crimea
With a lance and a musket and a Roman spear
To all of the men who have stood with no fear
In the service of the King
Before you met your fate be sure you
Did not forsake your lover
May not be around anymore
About the Author
