ballnine - RUN, DON’T WALK TO POSTSEASON SUCCESS

 

By Kevin Kernan October 4, 2020

Let me paint this picture. It’s a small thing, that’s really a big thing and it shows why I’ve been on the Marlins bandwagon since part-owner/CEO Derek Jeter became Mr. Marlin after the 2017 season.

I’ve been to every team’s spring training site through the years, many, many times, going back to my Padres days in Yuma, Arizona. That was the perfect place to cover spring training. Easy to get around. No hassles. Stayed at the team hotel so players and coaches were readily available. There was no place to hide and back then players didn’t hide. There were baseball conversations all the time.

At the ballpark, the working conditions were excellent, too.

Large clubhouse. Press box on top of the action at Desert Sun Stadium and you could always find GM Jack McKeon on the back fields. This was before cell phones too. A great trick current GMs do now is when they see a reporter coming their way, their phone suddenly goes up against their ear in Fake Conversation to avoid a real conversation and questions about the team.

As you can guess, this was long before spring training camps became fortresses and reporters were locked away in a window-less cell, security always keeping watch.

Plus here is another thing, Yuma is home to the Territorial Prison, opened in 1876, and the city embraces its history. In fact, the high school’s nickname is one of the best ever. The Yuma Criminals. In 1917 they officially adopted the name. An opposing high school gave them that nickname as a slight, but the Yuma students “embraced the suck”, as Joe Maddon likes to say and to this day Yuma High School is home to the Criminals or Crims.

And yes It was a T-shirt I just had to buy my first spring in Yuma.

Like the Johnny Cash song says, and it should have been written about covering baseball:

I’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere, man
Crossed the desert’s bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel I’ve a’had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere

With all that in mind let me tell you about an early morning visit this spring to the 

Marlins camp in Jupiter, a site they share with the Cardinals. Once I pulled into the 

parking lot and said hello to Dominick, the best baseball parking attendant in the world, 

I made my way to the patio area, adjacent to the Marlins clubhouse.

That’s where you hang out.

There are double steel doors the players use to enter and exit. Players come out for the 

early morning workout … early, so get there even earlier, if you can. That’s how you run 

into stories.

There are different fields in use and some fields are a good walk from the clubhouse.

Usually, players come out in small groups, telling stories, laughing, joking or, because 

they are baseball players, complaining. Players are often bitching about something, it’s 

the nature of the beast, much like sportswriters.

On this perfect February morning, though, I immediately noticed something different.

Here were players coming out, but they were not sauntering their way to the fields. They 

were not walking. Each and every Marlin, young and old, is running to the fields. Not a 

sprint, but something better than a jog. They are moving with a purpose from the get-go, 

there is work to do.

I’ve never seen that before in hundreds of visits to major league spring training sites 

through the decades. You might see one or two Johnny Hustles, but the whole team?

And not one player is eating a banana or an orange or an energy bar or chatting away as 

they slowly walk to the fields.

Every player is hustling, running to the field. When the workouts were over, the players 

ran off the field back to the double steel doors of the clubhouse. It was refreshing to see.

Then it hit me.

Jeter is in charge here.

Manager Don Mattingly is in charge here.

VP of player development and scouting Gary Denbo is in charge here.

All ex-Yankees.

Jeter learned to run in spring training because you never know who is watching.

Here is how that happened.

In 2014 Mattingly told the story to Al Santasiere, senior director publications for the 

Yankees.

“I first met Derek when he was in the minors,’’ Mattingly began. “He had a long way to go 

at that point, but I liked the way he went about his business. One morning during spring 

training, we were both coming off a back field together. I was running off the field, and I 

noticed that he wasn’t. I quietly told him to always run onto and off the field because you 

never know who’s watching you. At first, Derek thought I was referring to fans watching 

him, but I knew that Mr. Steinbrenner had his eyes on us.”

For more about how the Marlins have achieved their success this year, click here.