Spring Training Diary Part 1: The Player's Club

Domonic Brown is an autograph machine

Spring training is a time honored tradition for many
Phillies fans.  A chance to get down into
the Florida sun, get a tan, and watch some baseball.  We here at Crossing Broad took a trip this
past March and got to experience, well, only the baseball part.  It was cold and rainy, but we had a good time
and thought we would pass along some interesting moments from our trip.  Today: player encounters, or as we’re calling
it, “The Players Club”, since having a bunch of millionaires hanging around a
beach for a month probably ends in divorce court.

Read more after the jump to find out what pimp car Ryan
Howard drives, and who gets stuck parking in the “rookie” lot.

One of the things we were most excited about was the
opportunity to get close to our favorite players.  Crossing Broad doesn’t get press passes (yet,
but kudos to the700level.com and PhilliesNation.com for striking up
partnerships with local media outlets), so any chance we have to be close to
the players is intriguing.  Many fans
attend these games looking for autographs, and the players seem pretty eager to
oblige.  Most notably, Phillies prospect
Domonic Brown is a machine.  He signed
for a solid 45 minutes before a Thursday afternoon game with the Tigers.  No joke, he signed every autograph that was
pitched his way, posed for pictures, and struck up conversation.  The only thing he didn’t do was sign breasts (although he may have later).  The same day Chase, Howard, and Werth all
stopped to sign a few on their way out to the field.  At Brighthouse Networks Field, the clubhouse
is located behind the left field line, so players have to walk onto the field
to get to the dugout, different than Major League stadiums.

Outside the stadium was no different, fans lined up to get
autographs outside of the two player exits. 
The first exit we stood at didn’t unveil any players at all.  First appearance was by Chris Wheeler.  Kind of hilarious because of the 12 or so
people camped outside this door, only one even asked for his autograph.  Muffin was happy to oblige.  

Next up were such B-listers as Phil Mackanan
and Sam Perlozzo (who by the way is dick, although to be fair, the 40 year old straight
from his mother’s basement who was hounding Perlozzo creeped me out too).  Next up, Dallas Green and Larry
Anderson.  Green, who signed my ticket
against the cast on his left wrist, had the “go fuck yourself moment of the day” when asked what happened to him, and he replied “I broke my wrist.”  Thanks Dallas.

Larry Anderson was happy to sign for a few fans.  His current hairdo makes it seem like he is starting to
take that spray on follicle stuff from ’93 seriously.  Side note on LA, when in college I interned
at Comcast Sportsnet.  One of my duties
was to log game footage so editors could better cut highlights.  When our own feeds were being logged, we
heard and saw everything that went on during commercials.  Before a game in Montreal, LA was telling Wheels about the previous night’s conquest and said, “yeah,
I got her number.  I’ll call her the next
time we are in town.”  Oh the exploits of
(former) professional baseball players.

Moving over to the second exit, we saw many players exiting,
but in one of two ways.  Those lucky
enough to park “within the complex” (like Chooch’s monster truck rally below)
didn’t have to walk past waiting fans.

Chooch would drive this

The lesser players had to park in the lot outside of the grounds, and walk
past fans to their cars.  Several of
these guys stopped to sign for fans including John Mayberry, Danny Baez (how
does he not negotiate his way into the back lot?!), and Andy Tracy.  Funny too that JA Happ had to park in this
lot, lol.  The guy can’t catch a break with this team.  Yo-yo’d for two years in and out of the
rotation, pitches great, sees limited time in the postseason, and now can’t
even park with the starters.  I’m
surprised he hasn’t flipped out and gone rogue like Bill Buchanan in Season 7
of 24 yet.

Andy Tracy, dressed way too cool for the back end of the 40 man roster

John Mayberry

Danny Baez, who closed that day, got the save as his wife and kids waited 

The heavy hitters got to park in the back.  Jimmy (not pictured in a black Mercedes)
drove out first, followed by Howard, Manuel, and an unstoppable triple threat of
Chase Utley, Jason Werth, and Jason Werth’s Beard (now deceased), heading toward
the beach in a white Range Rover.  Which by the way, do all of these players drive their cars down for Spring Training?  Most had Florida tags, so I'm thinking they just rent high end cars for the month.

Ryan Howard exits after waving off a 12 year old for an autograph

Would Charlie Manuel drive anything other than a beat up Tahoe?

The elusive Chase Utley, Jason Werth, and Jason Werth's now defunct beard, heading toward the beach, likely to do something awesome.

Judging by their rides, I'm going to guess these guys did something awesome on Clearwater Beach that night.  Because of this, we're going to award them our second ever Pat Burrell Award for awesomeness and covortory (Jeff Carter received it the first time, we think Jeff Carter receives a lot).