ST 2018: Travel day

A mama owl sits protectively on her two eggs
atop the D Building at Canyon Crest Academy,
where I am subbing prior to Spring Training trek #17.
(Photo by Ed Piper)

By Ed Piper

Baseball teams can have travel days, so I can have one, too.

Today, Thurs., Feb. 22, is my travel day to baseball Spring Training in Phoenix/Tempe. I substitute-teach during the day in North County (to help pay for my National Pastime pleasures), then drive straight to the Valley of the Sun this afternoon and evening (about a six-hour transit to Mesa). While the 15 Major League teams at 10 different training complexes continue working out today, I start my baseball activities tomorrow.

This will be my 17th visit to Spring Training in Arizona, the 16th in the 25 years since the Padres first opened their combined Peoria facility with the White Sox way back in 1994. (The next year, my wife Dianna and I bought our wedding engagement rings at a store in a shopping center behind the outfield.) Four of those ST trips have been to Yuma, when the Padres still trained there. The other 13 will have been to Phoenix/Tempe.

Though forsaking the San Diego organization that my wife was willing to attend games with me for (for a while), since going back to my childhood roots with the "True Blue" group, I do include the ever-earnest Padres in my frenzied tour of as many of the 10 Spring Training ballparks as I can fit in during my four days in the valley.

I perfected a system in pursuit of baseball Nirvana last year, catching, for example, the Rangers in a 9 a.m. workout during which we fans could mosey feet away from the athletes, doing conditioning on a turf field in Goodyear, Arizona (way over on the west side of the valley). By going to parks in the morning to view practice, before the daily 1 p.m. games, I could hit nearly all 10 sites and many of the 15 teams--which are spread among National and American League clubs.

While I was able to mingle with players from the Rangers, along with excited fans from Texas, who had traveled a good distance to Arizona (I'm not a Rangers fan, or a Padres fan--more like a baseball fan in general), at other facilities you really can't get too near the players.

At the Padres' fields last year, for example, I could only view players taking swings in a batting cage from a distance.

A hilarious story from my 16 visits so far is one of Audra, our friends' older daughter. Going to the ballpark in Maryvale, Spring Training home of the Brewers, years ago, I encouraged Joe and Cathy's two daughters--then children--to go secure some autographs from players.

Audra, growing frustrated, didn't wait for a player to agree to sign. Instead, from the stands above the bullpen, she dropped her souvenir baseball down toward the player (whose name I forget). The ball didn't hit him, but it thudded as it hit the ground near him. He was visibly ticked. Dropping the ball toward the player was a total break in protocol, which dictates that you wait until the player is receptive and then you hand or gently toss the object you want signed to him.

The player in question walked away with an expression of disgust on his face, before a teammate picked up the ball and tossed it back up to Audra sans autograph. She was a little mortified. Dad Joe and I watched all this from a short distance away, chuckling a little.