From Iowa to New Hampshire and down to the South, the candidates go from coffee shop to restaurant to overcrowded debate stage, tweaking their positions in the field, taking swings at each other and searching for their best fastball. It’s a Darwinian contest, these primaries. They begin with a many-man roster of hopefuls, and some just don’t have it, some can’t grind it out, some run into bad luck — it’s just “not their year”, a familiar saying goes — and the ones who make it through March are poised to play up to November.
A similar process began Tuesday in Florida and Arizona, except the games don’t count there this time of year. The ball players interact with the fans, walking up to the chain-link fences of unpretentious parks to chat and sign autographs in their own version of retail politics. There’s hardly a more intimate environment in all of professional sports, in which the audience and the players are typically separated by a strictly enforced rope line.
Spring training is a season for the diehards. Onlookers get a first look at promising newcomers and established veterans, underdogs and comeback stories. They see the professionals dressed down, often surrounded by phone cameras more than TV crews and boom microphones. The best-known players gobble up the attention, as onlookers hand a pen and a program, or a trading card, bat, hat, or piece of scrap to the guys who always appear in the commercials for Sunday Night Baseball: the official Sunday show of hardball. The anonymous players keep to themselves, fidget with their gloves, kick the dust, and adjust their caps even if it’s cloudy. Maybe it’ll change for them someday. That’s why they’re here.
I was there in the Phoenix area to watch the Cincinnati Reds in 2010, when the club was on the cusp of its first sustained success in more than 15 years. The tickets were cheaper, naturally. But so were the goods. It was not 10-dollar beer night, which at some sporting events is a cause for celebration. There might not have been miles of Queen City concessions, but there were ample provisions. And the sight lines at Goodyear Ballpark were generally unblocked.
That clear view of the action allowed attendees to eyeball a player’s every movement. One of the most engrossing competitors to monitor from the dugout to the batter’s box was Joey Votto, the team’s enigmatic and reserved first baseman whose cerebral approach to hitting has earned him both accolades and derision. He has won a most valuable player award, but he has also inspired criticism from observers who say he is too patient. Seeing him up close, two sources of his success become clear: He picks his pitches, and he speaks softly and carries a big stick. In baseball, those methods will advance your career beyond March.
That is where the similarities between the sport and politics end for now.
