Spring Training Notebook

Arriving in Phoenix when everyone else is packing up

Nobody likes the final weekend of Spring Training. Teams have already played close to 30 games. Players, coaches, support staff, and much of the media have spent the past six weeks away from home, perhaps in sterile corporate housing or, more likely, accruing points in a Marriott property.

The Ohtani-Trout showdown that concluded the WBC earlier this week already feels like last month. It’s time to go home. It’s time to play games that count. Everyone’s got 162 to get through.

Touching down in Phoenix on Friday, I made sure to remind myself how I used to feel 40 days into the Cactus League. Bullpens and B-games quickly gave way to taking for granted all the things I promised I would never take for granted. But when #92 is pinch running for the Triple-A third baseman in the bottom of the seventh of a game in late March, it sure as hell feels like time to go home.

When I arrived at Padres camp, outbound U-Haul trucks were accepting cargo. Pallets of sports drinks and bubble gum were tightl…