The Major League Baseball regular season is already a six-month, 162-game grind, complete with teams playing all but a few days per month and the only discernible time off during the season coming from the All-Star break -- at least for those who aren't All-Stars.
So if the regular season is already a day-after-day grind, why is spring training so long? Fans full of anticipation want to get the real games going, and even now, still fairly early in March, pitchers have been in camp for almost three weeks, with another three to go.
So what's the ideal length of spring training? As you would expect, it all depends on who you're asking and his role on the team. I discovered that quickly as I made my way around the various spring facilities here in Arizona. Let's hear what everyone from reporters to managers to hitters to starting pitchers to relief pitchers had to say about spring training length.
Non-players
"It's too long," groaned C. Trent Rosecrans, Reds beat writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Rosecrans, like many other beat writers who have been here since mid-February, has been counting the moments until he gets some time off. Because spring training is so long, most media outlets send their writers in shifts, with the first shift usually ending right about now and replacements flying in from all over the country.
But big league managers don't have that luxury; there are no backups coming to relieve them. The grind has just begun.
The role of the manager in the spring, ostensibly, is to act as a figurehead in terms of leading practice and games, as well as to evaluate players for roles on the roster. Cubs manager Joe Maddon embraces the former responsibilities, but he admits the second can be tricky.
But before delving into that, he passed along an observation, one that he has shared with reporters a few times already this spring: "Players have made spring training longer. They report sooner, they want to be here sooner, and you don't blame guys for getting here sooner," Maddon said as he gestured to a practice behind him that he helped put together. A guitarist was finishing up a live rendition of AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" as a DJ took over while the players chatted in the warm Arizona air. That's not a bad setting.
"They report sooner, they want to be here sooner, and you don't blame guys for getting here sooner." Cubs manager Joe Maddon
And what about evaluating the position battles? "You pretty much know what your team is supposed to look like when you come into camp, and I'm a big believer in that," Maddon said. "You have to rely on previous years' results regarding players; don't be fooled by a guy that hasn't done a whole lot who has a great spring, and don't be fooled by the guy who has had great success but has had a bad spring."
His final verdict: "The length of spring training is absolutely appropriate."
Hitters
When a previously injured hitter heads out for a rehab assignment in the middle of the regular season to get his timing back, he usually needs only about two weeks. As such, you'd think most hitters would feel six weeks was way too long for spring training, but it's not that cut and dried.