Using Food to Protect Their Meal Tickets

It is often known simply as “the spread,” the meal laid out in the clubhouse for a major league baseball game.

Though it once typically featured hot dogs, pizza or chicken--that’s for you, Wade Boggs--the spread, along with salaries, has gone uptown.

Shortstop Miguel Tejada of the Oakland Athletics interrupted a conversation before a recent game to jump up, find a trashcan and spit out a piece of sushi that didn’t sit well with him, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The A’s and Giants’ spreads have been catered by such restaurants as MoMo’s, Jardiniere, Tarantino’s, P.F. Chang’s and Hayward Fishery, and the Chronicle reports that Bay Area clubhouse fare has included halibut, turkey burgers, crawfish and alligator.

More on the spread: Why the big change? Teams have recognized the importance of protecting their investments by helping players eat healthier--and increasingly sophisticated athletes are focused on maximizing their careers.

“There’s more emphasis on it than before,” Oakland equipment manager Steve Vucinich told the Chronicle. “It seems like the visiting clubhouse managers now are judged on their food service. When I started it was, ‘Did you run a clean clubhouse?’ ‘Was the equipment in order and clean?’ ‘Were you cooperative?’ Now it just seems to be, ‘Hey, we’re going to Tampa. The guy makes Cuban sandwiches.’”

Trivia time: Before he was the Mick, Mickey Mantle had another nickname, born of his Oklahoma hometown. What was it?

Love means letting go: Courtesy of Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Those people in Charlotte who paid large money to watch the Hornets in the postseason are the same ones who, when they broke up with their girlfriends, not only gave them all the good albums, but also helped pack them, in alphabetical order.”

No kidding: The Hornets’ David Wesley wasn’t interested in all the fuss about Jason Kidd lifting New Jersey to victory despite a battered, swollen eye in Game 4 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference semifinal series.

“Oh my God, he got stitches,” said Wesley, whose head had inflicted the damage on Kidd in the previous game. “What did you expect him to do--limp?”

That’s baseball, by gum: The Arizona Republic’s Dan Bickley talked to major leaguers about a hazy memory of their youth, the baseball card accessory that comes in hard pink rectangles, dusted with powder.

“I remember that gum,” Diamondback pitcher Brian Anderson said. “It turned to foam in your mouth.”

The Diamondbacks’ Mark Grace collected cards too.

“You put them in your bicycle spokes so it sounded like you had a motor,” Grace said. “I’m sure I put a few Pete Rose rookie cards in my spokes and messed them up. But it sounded like I had a motor, so that was the important thing.”

Trivia answer: The Commerce Comet.

And finally: All that emphasis on healthier clubhouse food doesn’t mean players don’t still order pizza.

“I’m becoming more aware,” Giant rookie pitcher Ryan Jensen said. “Practicing it--I don’t really do it. I’m still a junk-food eater. I’m a big Jack in the Box guy.”