Annual truck to Spring Training
A hopeful sign of warmer weather is the annual spring training truck departure day. Over the last few years and with the explosion of social media, for most clubs this has even become somewhat of a media event.
Every year in late January or early February teams will send a truck or sometimes even two or three from their home stadium to their spring training headquarters.
Clubhouse and athletic training personnel have spent several weeks packing absolutely everything imaginable to take to their training camp sites.
On the equipment side there is the obvious:
- Jerseys
- Uniform pants
- Belts
- Socks
- Caps
- Catching Gear
- Ball Bags
- Duffel Bags
- Bat Bags
- Batting Helmets
- Batting Gloves
- Jackets
- T shirts
- Long Sleeve Undershirts
- Compression shorts
- Undergarments
- 75-100 dozen bats
- Approximately 1,500+ dozen baseballs
- Rosin Bags
- Pine Tar Rags
- Hundreds of towels
- Bat Weights
Cases of bubble gum and sunflower seeds and other snack items.
And countless other items necessary for the daily operation of handling the needs of the players and coaches.
On the athletic training side there are many trunks filled with all the medical supplies that may be needed to take care of the team regardless of the situation.
On the strength and conditioning side are countless pieces of exercise equipment. Nowadays, with most of the teams now having state-of-the-art facilities, many of these items are left at the training camps permanently.
The team’s video staff will also have several trunks filled with monitors and video equipment.
Formerly, large items like pitching machines and weight machines would be shipped back and forth but that is really a thing of the past. Afterall, these facilities are now used year around, so it makes sense to have duplicates at each site.
In addition to the manager, players and coaches, there are dozens of staff members that are also part of spring training. Therefore, they too have a need to ship down some items necessary for them to be away from home and also be able to do their jobs in the front office.
Since everyone associated with the team will be at spring training for several weeks, many personal items are also included on the truck such as:
- Golf Clubs
- Fishing Gear
- Toys
- Bulky baby items
- Suitcases full of warm weather clothing.
Occasionally you will even see some unusual items.
- When I was with the Phillies, we had the Phillie Phanatic’s hot dog launcher
- A kayak
- Some furniture and we even had a wedding gown for a soon to be wife of one of our staff members who were getting married during spring training.
You just never know what you might see from year to year.
Here at the Phillies camp in Clearwater, Florida, we always had a very special guest come out and not only greet the truck but also help us unload. None other than the Honorable George Cretekos, Mayor of Clearwater!
Baseball is right around the corner.
