Spring Training: It’s an Unnecessary Evil

Pitchers and catchers report Friday.”

The above statement is true.

How a person chooses to respond to said statement says a good deal about that person’s professional standing, societal status and pet personality disorder.

For instance:

“Hope springs eternal on Friday. Life begins anew on Friday. I’m taking leave from work, transferring my Baseball Weekly subscription to the Mesa Rodeway Inn and driving to Arizona on Friday.” (Probably someone who needs to get a life)

“I’ve been marking off the days on the calendar, waiting for this very moment.” (Probably the manager of the Mesa Rodeway Inn.)

“I can hardly wait. This is the year we’re going to win it all.” (Probably not an Angel fan)

“You know, if I could find another gig that paid $4.2 mil, not counting annuities and deferred payments until the year 2004, I’d jump at it in a second.” (Probably a pitcher or a catcher).

“AAAARRRGGHHH!” (Probably a baseball beat writer).

If Super Bowl Week, that six-day cavalcade of hype and tripe, reigns as the undisputed non-event on the sports calendar, spring training has to rank in the Top 5. It is six weeks of practice , exalted as if it were an Aztec sun ceremony, complete with the worship of false gods and obligatory barbecue.

Poems get written about spring training.

Famous authors and wrong-thinking political columnists swoon at the mention of spring training.

I’ve been to spring training--four times, as per my sentence as Angel correspondent for this newspaper.

I’ve seen spring training.

This is spring training:

Week One: Pitchers and catchers report. Pitchers and catchers play catch. Pitchers run. Pitchers pull hamstrings. Catchers carry pitchers into trainer’s room.

Week Two: Balance of the squad reports. Much batting practice.

Week Three: More batting practice.

Week Four: Exhibition games. Bus rides to Yuma. Bus rides to Tucson. ‘B’ games in Chandler. Blown-out 36-year-old pitchers walk seven in 1 1/3 innings. Guy goes three for four and becomes a rookie “phenom.” Manager wins and says, “These games help create an atmosphere for success.” Manager loses and says, “These games mean nothing.”

Week Five: Phenom starts seeing the curveball. Phenom is now “a year away.”

Week Six: Roster cuts. Camp breaks. Opening Day nears, another cataclysmic event in our existence. Manager of good team says he “can’t wait to get to the gate.” Manager of bad team says, “If only we had a little more time.”

Give or take a holdout, a clubhouse fight and an altercation between Arizona police and Jose Canseco, that’s it. Much ado about nothing, or pickoff throws to third base, which happen to be, basically, one and the same.

It’s all a necessary exercise, I used to suppose, until the springs of ’90 and ’91 gave way to the fall. The last two baseball seasons have unmasked The Ritual of the Spring as the protracted charade that it is--which is, too long by at least a third.

In 1990, major league owners locked out the players for half of training camp and managers and pundits fretted that the shortened spring would yield a false season, producing the wrong winners and the wrong losers because the fragile chemistry of preparation had been jostled.

The Oakland A’s and the Cincinnati Reds went on to play in the World Series.

In 1991, baseball returned to its traditional six-week prologue and the season was allowed to proceed according to natural law, as outlined and detailed in the gospel according to John McGraw.

The Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves went on to play in the World Series.

One more time: Which was the false season?

Baseball depends on its preseason no more than football depends on its--yet all you hear is everybody complaining about how long and boring the NFL preseason is. (That everybody is right is beside the point.) And nobody makes 1,000-mile pilgrimages to Oxnard to watch Elvis Patterson shag punts for Jeff Gossett.

Ah, Bern Brostek sweating on a blocking sled in Irvine--that blessed rite of summer.

Pass the word that Rusty Kuntz will be hitting fungoes in Tempe, though, and they’re pulling the kids out of school and loading up the minivan within a half-hour.

“Pitchers and catchers report Friday.”

Thanks for the warning.

Me, I don’t plan to report until April 6.