Oh, Spring Training
It’s time for the annual tradition that serves absolutely no purpose, caring about how players perform in Spring Training.
It’s like a rite of passage as a baseball fan, the need and desire to look at meaningless games from which no conclusion can be drawn, and yet, conclusions will come, oh, will they come. It’s become pretty tiring for me in fact, so tiring that I’m writing about it. Still, it will happen again and again. My writing about it isn’t going to change that, yet here we are.
I have no idea when people started caring about Spring Training. If I had to guess I would say that it started probably as soon as newspapers first started reporting on the goings-on at Spring Training locations. Once it was out in the news, well, then it had to matter, didn’t it? From there it grew and grew until the present day where games are televised and even though everyone and their mother knows the games are meaningless fans try their best to glean meaning from them.
Reporters deserve to shoulder a large chunk of the blame for making people think Spring Training is important. They are the ones writing about Spring Training game performances and backfield throwing sessions as if they actually tell us anything about how elite athletes are going to perform in legitimate games. Countless articles are written every year about how Player Y is throwing the ball, how in shape Player Z is this year, the way Albert Almora Jr. has finally learned to lay off sliders low and away, etc., etc. These articles are written despite their authors knowing that once actual real games begin there’s no chance Almora is going to lay off any sliders.
I used to care about Spring Training, hell I can still remember thinking that Jake Fox looked amazing one spring and that meant this was going to be the year my beloved Chicago Cubs finally won it all. Silly, sure, but it’s what happens to everyone who pays attention to anything Major League Baseball related in the spring. We invite this silliness into our lives because it is comforting. We know that all of our takeaways from Spring Training are likely without basis. That doesn’t stop us from hoping that what we are seeing is actually true. Heck, sometimes it ends up being true and that just feeds our willingness to buy into Spring Training results even more.
Listen, maybe you still enjoy Spring Training. If you do, good for you, I’m happy that you are enjoying this time of year. All I’m asking is this, temper your reactions somewhat. Realize that these games don’t mean anything, there are huge disparities in talent level, and most of the players aren’t even trying all that hard. Spring Training is a time of great hope for every MLB fan, but it’s also a pathway to nothing but heartbreak once you realize the dude lighting it up in Arizona in March can’t hit a fastball down the pipe in May. Ah, Spring Training, my least favorite time of year.
