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March
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The Boys of Spring
By DOUG GLANVILLE
Published: March 26, 2008
Baseball has begun — in Tokyo, as the game expands worldwide — but the teams other than the Red Sox and A’s are still in Florida and Arizona, and for a few more days they’re all contenders. That’s part of what’s so great about spring training: anything is possible; every team starts from the same point, zero wins and zero losses. Players from all over the world descend upon sunny climes, just as hopeful as their fans.
I was once one of those players. Even though I retired from professional baseball three years ago, my internal clock is set to go off in March, telling me that I am supposed to be putting on a uniform. I’ve discovered that watering my rooftop garden is not a worthy substitute for getting grass stains on my pants from making a great diving catch in the outfield. Now I have to rely on my memory to soothe my instincts. Since a baseball player has the memory of an elephant, my first spring training with the Chicago Cubs might as well have happened yesterday.
Like any other young person entering a new career, a rookie player has not a clue. I recall the brochure the Cubs handed out telling us the training complex was “just four short blocks from your hotel.” Of course, we were so happy to don the professional attire of a big league team, we believed anything. They neglected to tell us that four blocks in Mesa, Ariz., is measured by King Kong’s shoes. We walked for over a mile in the chill of the Arizona morning — who would have thought it could get so cold in the desert? — and came back midday with the heat of the sun bearing down on our right shoulders. I went from scarf to tank top in about five hours.
Our hotel was not the Ritz-Carlton either. There were four phones lines serving the Maricopa Inn, so players ran home after practice to beat their teammates for an open line. If you lagged, you had to be ready to explain to your girlfriend or parents why you called three hours after practice ended.
My first roommate was a sleepwalker. He woke up in the middle of the night yelling at shadows; once he crawled into my twin bed after a late-night rant. After that I slept with one eye open and a Pro Stock model M159 baseball bat nearby.
But for those who persevere, stay healthy and “have what it takes,” one fateful spring a Big League promotion will be finally granted, and the stakes go through the roof overnight. The day I walked into my first big-league practice, my locker was sandwiched between those of Randy Myers, an All-Star reliever, and Ryne Sandberg, now a Hall of Famer. Myers had equipped his locker with grenades, tasers and the keys to what I am sure was the first Hummer sold in the United States. But when I saw my jersey with my name on the back hanging next to Sandberg’s No. 23, I knew I had truly arrived.
It did not last for long. That spring, the major league pitchers gave me a long and thorough dose of reality. Everyone who makes it to big league camp was a baseball legend at some point in his life. It was big fish from big and small ponds thrust into the biggest pond of their lives, most of us just trying to find some plankton of an opportunity in the last slot of a 25-man team.
I had sparkling college All-America and first-round draft pick credentials, but I found out pretty quickly that I didn’t have any idea how to approach a major league curve ball.
So, as my batting average plummeted and I gathered a hefty collection of broken bats from mistimed swings, I knew the call into the manager’s office was coming. The spring was coming to an end — it was time to go back to the minor leagues, leave the good life of weekly cash stipends and rubbing shoulders with some of my baseball heroes. Maybe next year.
Well, after three more of those annual demotions in the principal’s office, I eventually figured out the game. Chicago’s manager, Jim Riggleman, pulled me aside and finally told me, “Congratulations, you made the team.” I still hadn’t quite mastered that major league curve ball, but I had learned the patterns of a pitcher, partly from listening in on the wisdom of our shortstop, Shawon Dunston, and first-baseman Mark Grace as they debated baseball etiquette, and also just from watching true professionals go about their business.
I’ll always remember one of my instructors telling me, “To be successful in this game, you have to give up the best years of your life.” At the time, it sounded strange. What young man in America wouldn’t think, “How else better to spend my best years?” Later, I understood the sacrifice you have to make to be the best at anything, but the innocence of a player coming to their first spring training makes a profound statement like my instructor’s bounce off like Teflon.
I smile when I think about that young player arriving at his first major league camp, setting up his locker in one of the cathedrals of the game. I’ll never head to spring training again as a player, but I will always look forward to the feeling of excitement that still rises in my heart every March.
Doug Glanville, who played nine years in the major leagues for the Cubs, Phillies and Rangers, is writing this guest column during the 2008 baseball season. Glanville served on the executive subcommittee of the Major League Baseball Players Association and is currently a consultant with Baseball Factory, a high-school player development program. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 with a degree in systems science and engineering.
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