A Moment to Build Belief: A Look at Spring Training’s Tradition

Photo by Jose Francisco Morales on Unsplash

There was one element of spring training that remained consistent every year: the opening speech. In my media work, I always ask managers what they plan to say when they first address the players and staff all together. It’s influenced by many factors. Did they win it all the year before? Are they rebuilding? Is this the manager’s first season, or his tenth? Anything can happen, but the goal is always the same: to set the tone from day one and build belief.

Every spring, however, one common theme stands out: the staff that’s been assembled is the greatest to ever be assembled.

I heard that a lot, and I’m sure it was believed to be true each time.

A room full of baserunning coaches, journeymen, rookies, new draft picks, and PR directors all had to get on the same train car on that day. The goals, the organizational philosophy, the need to forget the past while remembering it. It all had to come together through the primary voice of team leadership with the manager as the conductor.

Conducting a train is different from driving a car. Unlike a car on a highway, a train has a set foundation with rails and guidance. You have signals to stop or go, and electricity and other resources to keep you moving as far as you need to go. But many things can derail a season—injuries are a big one. Still, managers have to keep going even when the rails are pulling up from the ground.

I think back to the many personalities I played under over the years: Tom Trebelhorn, Jim Riggleman, Terry Francona, Larry Bowa, Buck Showalter, Joe Torre, Dusty Baker. I never had spring training under Dusty, but I learned his style and heard some of his epic speeches during the regular season in Chicago.

The other managers I played for had to give my teams that spring speech at some point or another.

Given that the teams I played for didn’t win much in those seasons, those springs led to years where we found out that we were missing some pieces we thought we had when that first speech was delivered. We could have performed poorly as players, been outmaneuvered in terms of resources or strategy, or faced financial limitations that kept us from making moves at the deadline.

But the speeches transcended all of that unpredictability. They were exercises in will, in crafting a mindset, and in welcoming us into something private and our own. It may not stay that way because of the nature of sport, trades, and all the rest, but you have to leave that station as one connected unit. Otherwise, you’ll be powerless - a sitting duck for the competition. Better get out and push, if need be.

Only one team is crowned champion, so the others will have to regroup and come up with a new “we can win it all” speech the next spring. Win or lose. It might come from the same voice as the year before, it might not, but it will come.

How we internalized these speeches depended on our individual experiences. Just as a manager could be the least or most tenured manager in the league, players bring different levels of experience to the table.

The words land differently when you are in your first camp. In my first big league spring training in 1994, I spent a lot of time marveling at the fact that Ryne Sandberg’s locker was next to mine. That year, every word from the manager was a mix of being poured from a golden fountain of bliss while being incomprehensible to me because my brain had too much to process. I was too busy looking around, seeing Mark Grace and Shawon Dunston in the same uniform I was wearing.

As time went by, though, you developed a touch of cynicism and a necessary filter. The cynicism might stem from getting beaten up on the field the year before and wondering if we made the right changes, or if my hamstring would finally explode on its own (which it did in 2003). The filter is a sense of realism that comes with time: the grind is coming, and you are not getting any younger.

But I still felt the joy and gratitude, no matter what stage I was in. It was another big league season, even if some years I had a guaranteed contract, and other years I was going year to year. Those various perspectives change how you hear that speech. Whether the words feel personal, like “No one is guaranteed to make this team.” In 1994, I didn’t make the team, but in 2000, I was a starter in the middle of a three-year contract, so I would make the team (or could get traded to another big league team).

In the end, it often came down to the teammates in the room. And that included more than just the ones in uniform. One spring, Scott Rolen pulled us aside to explain his contract situation with the Phillies. He wanted to make it clear that it was not personal to us, the core group. He loved us like brothers, and he filtered out the noise for us. That speech landed differently coming from a teammate, but it also framed what we needed to do as a team, knowing there would be many questions about his future from those covering our season.

The manager can help a lot in this situation, too. He can buffer the overhyped concept of a distraction, bring everyone back together, and remind us to have fun while doing so. Words count.

Recently, we had Terry Francona on our podcast, Starkville, and when I asked about the upcoming speech, he immediately explained how he had been thinking about it and taking notes for a while. It was important to him. He had guest speakers. He was new, as a manager, to the Cincinnati Reds organization, so he wanted to make an impact.

He also has many championships under his belt which helps, but as he expressed, every year is a new one. We have to accept the good and bad of being forced to start over. Our record is 0-0. Then, when Opening Day arrives and you give the speech of a lifetime, you will know you did your best, because as a manager, you can no longer step into the batter’s box yourself.

I can’t claim to remember these speeches in great detail. But I do remember that first day in the clubhouse, all of us together, ready for the marathon season that lay ahead.