"Spring Training Survival Guide" Part III - The Day-to-Day

The internet is chock full of "Day in the Life" essays from current & former ballplayers detailing just how hard the daily grind can be for professional athletes. Dirk Hayhurst (The Bullpen Gospels) and Jim Bouton (Ball Four) can stake claim to the seminal baseball books of their respective generations, and both works touch on the difficulty (and monotony) of our National Pastime. It has become cliche to whine about how hard the day-to-day routine of Spring Training can be so I won't beat a dead horse. I will fully admit, however, that I fell head first into the trap of succumbing to the grind.

It is sickening to think that I had worked my entire life to get the opportunity to have a major league franchise pay me to play my favorite sport, yet when I finally got there, I had the audacity to complain about ANYTHING. Maybe being a baseball fan and autograph hound as a kid gave me the wrong perspective. Maybe how I envisioned Spring Training in my head - taking hacks with David Wright, catching bullpens exclusively for Tom Glavine, cracking jokes with Pedro Martinez - set my expectations too high for some watershed moment in my life that could never fully be realized. Spring Training is an exhilarating experience, make no mistake about that. But it is definitely not Fantasy Camp and you must be prepared to do the work.

The hours are long, the sun is hot, the drills are never-ending, the meal money is laughable, the bus rides are eternal, the hotels are seedy, the locker room is loud, the food is mediocre, the conditioning is hard, the ego's are insufferable, the gym and training room are jammed, every muscle will ache and the alarm clock will always go off way too early...and it will still be the time of your life...and baseball is still the greatest game ever invented. I can't believe how petty and insignificant every one of these gripes appears in hindsight, though I'm sure myself or one of my teammates felt defeated by at least one of them at one point or another. You will be sore at the end of the day, and there is a legitimate chance that the payoff for all your hard work will be a ticket to Extended Camp or a pink slip. Try and remember that for one small window in the timeline of your life, that this is all that the world expects of you - show up, play hard, and have fun.

Knowing how tough it will be ahead of time will not only help you perform, but the perspective will allow you to savor the experience that much more. Parts of ST will suck, and I really can't think of a more succinct adjective to describe it, but the good will outweigh the bad with the right frame of mind.

Here is a list of tips to help you get through the physical and mental drain of the day-to-day grind:

- Use 2 alarms - never trust the hotel wake-up call system to get you up in the morning. This is especially important at the smaller hotels that still require manual phone calls from the front desk attendant. Blaming the front desk lady for showing up late to practice won't get you very far, especially when 200+ other guys made it to camp with time to spare.

- Get to know the tubs - both hot and cold - they will become your best friends. Hot tub in the morning to loosen up all of the muscle aches, and cold tub after practice to shock the system and aid in the recovery process.

- Take your pain medicine with food and lots of water. I was up to 9 Aleve and 4 Excedrin per day and I would have been vomiting blood if I hadn't been wise enough to wash everything down with plenty of cold water. Which brings me to another big tip...

- Stay HYDRATED. Florida is a 65,000 sq. mile outdoor sauna, with air thick enough to choke an asthmatic. The sweat will pour out of you like a running faucet. Drinking plenty of water will do the trick just fine, but don't be afraid to pop the electrolyte tablets the training staff has available.

- Wear sunblock. It sounds obvious enough, but forgetting one time is all it takes to have to battle through third-degree burns, and all the aloe vera in the world won't fix a swing that is hindered by the fact that you can't raise your arms above your shoulders.

- If you need treatment, get your ass into the trainer's room. You have all season to be a hero, don't get off on the wrong foot with injuries that can be treated early. And get to the clubhouse early enough so that you don't have to wait in line - if players report at 6:30, get there by 6.

- Eat breakfast. That extra 15 minutes of sleep is no substitute for sitting down to a carb-rich meal before a long day of work-outs. Some guys won't eat the meals prepared at camp, which is fine - Xavier Nady even went as far as picking up 200 Sausage MacMuffins for the minor leaguers because the food wasn't up to snuff - but put something in your system. You simply cannot run on fumes for 8 hours in Port St Lucie.

- Eat a reasonable lunch. This can be hard if your lunch group is last to eat, as the time between meals will make you even hungrier, but 3 sandwiches, 2 bananas and 4 glasses of whole milk will ensure that the afternoon drills move verrrrrrry slowly. Throw some granola bars in your bag and take a bite here and there to get over the hunger pangs if you get them. Large meals that sit in your stomach will do you no good.

- Don't shower with Jesus Feliciano (Is he still with the Mets?); It is a humbling endeavor and your ego may never recover from the irreparable bruising

- "Idle hands are the devil's playthings" - and by that I mean, boredom during the little downtime you may have can make you lazy and bitter. Occupy your downtime with card games with teammates or the USA Today crossword puzzle (which you can easily steal from the doorstep of one of the Holiday Inn's paying guests) to keep your mind sharp during the lulls.

- When a coach asks if you want extra work (hitting, fielding, you name it), you say "Yes"

- If no coach asks you if you'd like to get in some extra work, you do it anyways

- Don't get upset at all of the "eyewash" ballplayers who will undoubtedly occupy the cages before and after practice. You know the type...the guy who takes lazy hacks, but as soon as he sees a coach or coordinator coming around the corner, will swing out of his shoes. Come to peace with the fact that they exist, and find solace in the fact that their ruse will not last. One day, those lazy hacks will make it into a report.

- Pitchers: Appreciate your catchers; we have the unenviable task of making your bullpens look and sound good. We don't mind blocking your s****y 54' sliders in the dirt, as long as we know you are thankful for the effort.

- Catchers: Work hard for your pitchers; Get to know which guys require instant, voluminous feedback (Tobi Stoner) and which guys "just want the damn ball" and want to go about their business (Jon Niese). There is nothing wrong with either mindset, you just need to know which guys are which so that you can be the best batterymate possible.


And possibly my most helpful nugget of advice that I can offer to you Spring Training rookies:

- When doing drills, if you think someone is showing you up with max effort, that generally means your effort isn't good enough. If the overall intensity of the drill is lagging, be the guy who ratchets it up a notch.


Have fun fellas...just not too much fun:

Up next: Part IV - Socializing & The Spring Training Night Life