The Beauty of Spring Training Baseball

When I was a kid my dad used to take me and my brother to spring training games down in Florida for the weekend. This was always a weekend of sun, fun, catching multiple games a day and meeting a lot of young players who would go on to be superstars. I came to treasure these times not only because it was great family time, but because it would ignite a lifelong love of spring training. It not only meant that the sun was coming out again, but that it was a new beginning for everyone in baseball.

During the off-season you would always here about baseball players getting ready for the season. In the dark days of December you would read about their workout regimens, about how they would spend their mornings learning how to mix HCG, then going out to train at their indoor gym all afternoon long. What spring training meant is that everything was starting anew and that the training regime would now begin to pay off on the actual field. It was like the beginning of spring and a sign that things would begin changing.

My favorite thing to do at spring training was watch the pitchers. Unlike just about any other position in sports, pitching is about finding your rhythm. It’s about getting back that fastball that you last left on the mound four months ago. Spring training for a pitcher is about making sure your speed and control doesn’t slip. It’s about trying to perfect your art.

During spring training, outside of bullpen work managers don’t like to have their pitchers on the mound for too long. It is possible to wear your pitcher out if you push them too hard out of the gate. You watch managers bring their pitchers into spring training games for about 2 innings at a time and just when a pitcher is about to hit his stride you take him out. It’s all about coaxing a pitcher to slowly get to his full potential. Start them at 70% and slowly build them up so that when they are ready for opening day they are at a full 100%. This is why managers get paid so much and are much smarter than the average sports fan: they know about patience and they about finding the best way to get the most out of their playoffs. Its reasons like that why there is nothing quite like spring training baseball.