A Spring Training Story


Let me be very clear in saying this, if you have ever worked in sports, namely baseball, there is no better time of year then spring training in Florida. None.

Leaving, usually a cold and snow swept airport somewhere in New York, the plane trip down there make you think all at once of the moment you touch down. The plane door opens up to the terminal and you hit at once by that blast of hot, Florida air. So welcomed and amazing in February.

Riding to the hotel, you see palm trees, and small southwest style houses, coupled with the fresh, open-air smell of the warm gulf. All at once you, your senses are alive with the anticipation of seeing the ballpark. Getting there to see the sun rises over the stadium the next morning is as great as seeing Mickey Mantle at batting practice in the old stadium when you were young…

I have worked spring training 12 times, going through the drill, and now that I no longer do that work, I often think back to some of the moments in time that made my days on those on Florida trips really fun.

At breakfast time at the Residence Inn one year, which is a great place to hole up if  you need to be there for 10 days or more (Lee Roy Selmon BBQ takeout is about 300 feet away), I had the good luck to sit and have breakfast with Yogi Berra for a few days. The routine went like this. I knew Rich Monteleone, who was the bullpen coach for the Yankees, so before we went to the park, I would get an early continental breakfast and sit with him and then head off to the stadium.

He would be downstairs having coffee waiting for Yogi, who liked to catch up on ESPN before Monteleone would drive him to the ballpark. I would say hello, eating my oatmeal, and reading the paper. Yogi would come down, grab some orange juice, and check out the TV for a few minutes and they would leave together. Rich introduced me to Yogi, who glanced and nodded distantly. There was very little conversation, and I would just be reading my paper and eating.

This went on for 3 mornings. I would lower the paper to check out Yogi from time to time, who was content to just watch ESPN in the dinning room and take his time. Everyone in the room watched him, but respected his privacy. Then on the fourth morning, the same routine but while eating my oatmeal, he leaned over to me and said “Oatmeal is good in the morning, especially if you eat it” smiled, and then got up and left. Rich and I glance at each other, and I knew that Yogi had left me with a classic zinger for the day.

Than one year, I arrived in Tampa at about 1:00 and had to be at the ballpark for some important shoot at 3:00. I happened to work for someone that year that took great relish in providing no information and assigning impossible tasks with no regard for timing.

I raced into the hotel to check-in only to find there was a long line because of a computer glitch. These were the years we stayed at the Bay Harbor, which was a little like the rustic Shady Rest Hotel, because nothing worked quite right, and it was, let’s say, a little tired in it’s appearance. They had the best-powdered mashed potatoes on the Gulf Coast.

So who was in front of me on line to check in but Don Mattingly. Donnie was the best player I saw play in my early years there.

Donnie was an icon and I had a few chances to interact with him, but he was what you call ballplayer business friendly, just a nod, not much else. If you were a writer, you were in a different universe, but the best some photographers ever got was a nod. This was about 2003, and Mattingly was there to be a guest instructor for the spring.

So I pull up with my bag, knowing I was crunched for my deadline at the park. Donnie turns around, gives me a handshake and a warm embrace, and begins to chat with me like a long lost friend.

We talked about his back operation, his kids, the 1998 World Series, and I realize that players like him sometimes know who you are, it’s just that in the baseball universe you are not the ones who they talk to. I had a blast chatting with him, forgot my deadline, and thought how cool this was. When I got the stadium with my excuse in hand, my boss couldn’t remember why he wanted me there. A co-worked once said that he had the memory of a dog; I now understood what he meant.

One year I had a 7:30 shoot for a cover with Pitcher Jose Contreras, who was both easy and friendly to deal with. He came at the agreed time, showed him the concept and we got the shoot done in only a few minutes. Very easy work, a perfect shoot.

About 5 minutes later Orlando Hernandez “El Duke” came trotting out to have a catch with him. El Duke happened to be a very gregarious guy. He was very generous with his time and had many different people who he was friendly with, myself included.

His first year there, we swapped music CD’s all season long, myself, digging him up some old Cuban charanga orchestra, and him, turning me on to whatever he was listening to. He was just a fun guy to interact with, very unlike most players, and always funny, with something profound hidden in his humor most of the time.

The day after Joe DiMaggio died, we spoke and he said “ So what happened yesterday?” “Joe DiMaggio died?” I said. “So what happened today?” he asked. I answered I don’t know, a little unsure as to what he was fishing for” “They play baseball.” That was El Duke…

I cherish his 1999 World Series home jersey he gave me as a token of our friendship.

So after the shoot it was Contreras, Hernandez, and me on this, bright, warm, early morning sun lit field, no one else around.  So El Duke says to me in Spanish ” Hey Rocco, want to toss the ball around?” Since this is the era when “The Boss”, whose office was upstairs, patrolled the stadium and you never knew when he would be watching and scouring the field, I said, “OK, but lets do just do one”.

He asked me how fast to throw it. I told him how about a change up. Contreras handed me his glove and El Duke pitched one.

It seemed coming at me the ball wasn’t traveling very fast, but it’s a good thing I caught it in the webbing, because it really had a snap to it. I complained a little, they both laughed, and then bolted to throw in one of the backfields

For a guy who is, like most of us are, an avid fan of our national past time, it doesn’t get better then that for an early morning in February at a ballpark in Florida.

Indeed, spring training is a special time...especially if you eat your oatmeal!

 

The Best Shooter In the Bunch

I remember the first time I met Barton…

Growing up like most kids, I loved baseball, and the New York Mets. And like most kids, I collected baseball cards, but I had another collection I was very proud of. I cut out newspaper pictures of all the games. Sports photography was my first appreciation of all things baseball. Photos with names like Ernie Sisto, Dan Farrell, William Jacobelis, Nury Hernandez, & Frank Hurley, fascinated me and I had photos by all of them in a thick folder. And there were many by Barton.

Baseball Photography was different in the 1960’s and 70’s. You had the Daily News and Post always running sequence photos on the back page, showing players crashing into the catcher and amazing catches in the outfield. And lots of photos inside, the visual over the headlines, as those photos drew you into the story of the game in the paper.

But the Times always had special pictures…and they were mostly Barton’s.

In the early 1990’s I started photographing with the group who worked for Yankees Magazine, and one of the results of that was meeting many of the shooters whose work I had always admired and in some cases, the pictures I have cut out of the papers when I was a kid. Barton was one of them…

Sometime during my first year at the stadium, I had built up enough chutzpa to walk up to him and introduce myself. It went something like this:

“Mr. Silverman I just want to say how much I love your work.”
“Yeah, so what else ya got?”

I had no comeback. I soon found out you had to spend time around these guys, have them get used to you, before they would open up. Sure they were a little difficult but they were pros, all of them, and they were there to work the way the guys before them had done, since the beginning of the game, turning out exceptional sports photos day in and day out.

At one point, sometime later, Barton would chat with me always opening with ”Louie, can I sit here?” There was a rotation in the old Yankee Stadium, as the photo box was only big enough for 7-9 shooters depending on the TV camera configuration, and you were always right on top of each other…like a can of sardines. But he would always manage to shoot the key moments, or as another longtime pro shooter, UPI Photographer Jack Balletti, once told me, “Make sure you tell the story of the game with your pictures”.

One night, as we were shooting, and I sat next to Barton, we were just chatting about something, maybe how had just worked shooting a golf open. He turned to me and said very seriously “Remember, Louie make a picture, don’t just take a picture.” I think it was the only advice I ever got from him. I didn’t understand what he meant by that at that point. But I watched and learned, and always listened. Of course he was spot on and he was the best in the bunch at what he did.

Barton is Barton Silverman who was the longtime staff sports photographer for the New York Times.

He recently took a buyout and has packed up his gear...