MESA, Ariz. — Spring training for writers is a perfect time to refresh the batteries, rekindle old friendships and retell stories of baseball characters that made our jobs easier.
Fiery Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella. Utilityman and professional troublemaker Tony Phillips. Legendary scouts Phil Rizzo and Gary Hughes.
The spring drags on when mid-March arrives, and you can’t wait until the arrival of opening day. But the years go by in a blur, reminding you of the hold the game has on all of us.
Last week at the Cubs complex I ran into Hall of Fame writer Peter Gammons, who has been covering baseball since starting at the Boston Globe in 1972. Gammons suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm in 2006 but recovered and is still going strong at age 78 with no intention of retiring. He said he tries to learn at least two new things every day, a motto I intend to steal.
Two summers ago Gammons said he watched a young Maryland infielder named Matt Shaw in the Cape Cod League, where Shaw hit .360 and was named the league MVP. Gammons told me Shaw, now a 22-year-old Cubs prospect, was the best player he had ever seen in the Cape Cod League. It was a compliment Shaw took as the highest of praise.
Gammons and his new friend had a long conversation on the field Tuesday, interrupted occasionally by Cubs manager Craig Counsell, bench coach Ryan Flaherty and others stopping by to say hello to Gammons, the most respected writer in the game.
Reporters get older and players get younger, but the game is the tie that binds.
“Peter is the best,” Shaw said. “I met him when I was in the Cape, and he knew a kid named Evan Sleight, who’s now playing at Alabama. They introduced me, and obviously I knew who Peter was because I was a Red Sox fan. We get to talking and find out by the end of the conversation we just both love this sport. He’s the best writer in the sport, his stories are phenomenal, and we hit it off from the jump.”
Gammons left the next day to check in on Red Sox camp in Fort Myers, Fla., where he was going to catch up with new GM Craig Breslow, whom he had watched play at Yale.
But Gammons hopes to be at Wrigley Field later this season or whenever Shaw makes it to the majors.
“I don’t know if I adopted him or he adopted me,” Gammons said.
On the other side of the valley, Roger Bossard was watering the infield at Camelback Ranch before a Cactus League game when I stopped by camp.
Known mostly by his nickname, “The Sodfather,” Bossard is entering his 58th season as White Sox groundskeeper and like Gammons doesn’t have an end game in sight.
“I don’t think about retirement,” Bossard said. “Jerry (Reinsdorf) was quoted in the paper about that a few months ago, asking ‘What am I going to do (if I retire).’ I feel the same way. I enjoy being out on the field working. I’ll be down here until March 12 when I go back home and get ol’ Betsy ready for opening day.”
“Ol’ Betsy,” of course, is Guaranteed Rate Field, which Bossard tends to as if it’s his backyard. The mild winter has left the playing field in good condition for the March 28 opener against the Detroit Tigers, unlike some winters of recent vintage.
“This has been one of the first years I don’t have to worry about putting the tarp down on the field and heating my field to get it out of dormancy or potentially spraying it with green dye,” he said. “I’ll be putting a lot of high nitrogen on the field. I’ll wake it up. If there is someone buried below my field this spring, he’ll be popping out with all the stuff I’m going to put on it.”
Bill Veeck once said a good groundskeeper was worth six to eight wins. If that’s the case, Bossard should be one of the Sox’s most valuable assets as they try to rebound from a 101-loss season.
Bossard said he hopes to be around long enough to work on the field of the proposed South Loop ballpark, assuming it gets built. Reinsdorf recently asked the Sodfather: “Do you have one more field in you?”
“That made me feel good, so they’re not getting rid of me yet,” Bossard said. “Why would I retire? I’m doing something I love to do.”
That was the same thing Tom Hellmann said for years. The longtime Cubs clubhouse manager, known to all as Otis, died in January at age 67 before what would have been his final spring training ahead of retirement. I had never covered a Cubs camp without Hellmann there, so his presence was missed from Day One.
But young clubhouse manager Danny Mueller helped keep Hellmann’s spirit alive, passing out T-shirts to players that read “OTIS” on the front and “A Cub Forever” on the back. Shaw was wearing one when I spoke with him about his friendship with Gammons, paying tribute to a Cubs legend he never knew.
It renewed my faith in the power of spring training.
The games might be meaningless, but the memories are priceless.