PHOENIX, Ariz. — The truth about spring training for players, coaches, equipment managers and media alike is you can’t wait to get there and you can’t wait to leave.
The freshness of a new beginning wears off after a week or so, and the monotony of spring training drills is in full bloom in the final week. Preparing for a 162-game baseball season is a long, meticulous process, made more complicated by the introduction of pitch labs, video analysis and generally micromanaging a team through better technology.
Then all of a sudden, you stop playing pretend games, flip a switch and have to start producing on a daily basis. Palm trees and that invisible starter button are the only things connecting today’s spring training to those of a century ago. Oh, and the mutual feeling from every camp that this really is the year.
The Cubs and White Sox ended their springs in Arizona the last two days with different expectations but the same optimistic outlook.
Veteran Sox starter Martín Pérez, who figures to land on a contender in August if he pitches well, said last week he didn’t sign with the 121-loss team to be traded elsewhere. This is a “good team,” Pérez insisted, before adding: “It doesn’t matter what people think about us.”
Everyone says they have a good team. So why does Pérez believe this Sox team will be any different from the last?
“The talent, they have great talent,” he said. “A lot of them are young guys, but they have passion. They like to prepare. They come every day to get better. When you have a team like this one, it’s said it’s going to be in the future, but we’re not far. We’re right there. We’re close. In a week, we’re going to see how the team is going to be, and I trust 100% that we’re going to be fine.”
Opening day makes everything feel new again. But the Cubs just had an opening day, so does their re-boot in Arizona feel like a real opener?
“For me it does,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “There is a little bit of getting excited for the routine of the season. Maybe opening day will be different, but getting into the everyday nature of the season, I’m excited about that.”
The end of spring also means it’s time to get serious and focus on things that really matter. You can tell a new season is in the offing when Cubs starter Justin Steele trims his long, blondish locks, and Shota Imanaga shaves off his trademark, jet black flow. But Pete Crow-Armstrong still had his closely cropped, bleached yellow hair with the blue stars dyed in, and wasn’t sure what direction he would go when I asked about a new ‘do.
“People responded well to it in Japan,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I do tend to go all around the place. I do miss having some hair. I once had a big wad of hair, a big curly mess up there. I kind of loved it, but getting in the dirt so much, I have a hard time finding a hair-cleaning routine, to be honest. All the bleach probably isn’t very good for my scalp either.
“We’ll see. Usually it’s a spur-of-the-moment thing, so I’ll keep it like that.”
Opening day comes around only once a year, or twice if you’re the Cubs, who just played in Japan. For those lucky enough to start an opener, it’s the culmination of a lifetime of hard work.
“So few people get to pitch in the big leagues in general, and even fewer get to pitch on opening day,” Sox opening-day starter Sean Burke told me. “There are so many good pitchers that never got an opening-day start. I’m super grateful.”
Burke will make his fourth big league start and fifth major league appearance on opening day at Rate Field. Sixteen years ago, he was a 9-year-old kid in Worcester, Mass., watching Josh Beckett deal against the Toronto Blue Jays on TV in the Boston Red Sox’s 2009 opener at Fenway Park. Beckett struck out 10 and allowed one run on two hits over seven innings.
Beckett was Burke’s guy, the pitcher he wanted to emulate as a kid: “He was a righty and a big fastball guy.” After Beckett, Burke loved watching Chris Sale on the Red Sox through high school and college.
Now Burke, 25, is making his own opening-day start and is ready to show that White Sox management was not taking a risk on a kid who barely has had a cup of coffee in the big leagues.
“I grew up a Red Sox fan and watched all of them, every single one of them,” Burke said on a paved path to the backfield at Camelback Ranch. “This is going to be the first opening day I’ve ever been to in person. It’ll be cool to pitch in it.
“I can imagine it’s going to be crazy. Even watching videos of the 2021 playoff games when I first got drafted, watching those Sox fans go crazy. I’m expecting it’s going to be wild and I’m excited for that.”
Burke’s manager, Will Venable, is in the unenviable position of acting as the new rebuilding coordinator for a team that set the major-league record for losses in 2024. Venable’s team enters 2025 with less experience and arguably less talent than its predecessor. It’s a tall task that makes you wonder why he didn’t hold out for a better gig.
But Venable accepted the challenge and is ready to change perceptions. He’s so low-key he makes Robin Ventura look like Ozzie Guillén, but perhaps that’s exactly what this group needs after the stormy reign of Pedro Grifol, the pilot of losing streaks of 14 and 21 games in the same season. Grifol’s greatest accomplishment as a manager was not getting fired, until he was mercifully let go after breaking the 21-game streak.
Venable may or may not become a great leader. That’s the guessing game every general manager faces when handing the job to an untested rookie. But anyone who has learned at the hip of Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy at the very least knows how to command the respect of his players. Venable told me Bochy was inclusive in his decision-making, a word that might not be in fashion these days, but is usually embraced by our greatest leaders.
“There have been a lot of things I’ve learned from Boch,” Venable told me last month. “The way he includes his staff in things. The way he communicates with players, the conviction, and the things he believes are a part of winning baseball. The list is endless with Boch and what his impact on me was. I feel really fortunate to be able to watch him the last couple years up close.
“Every day I’d take the lineup. He’d hand it over and say ‘If you want to change anything, let me know.’ Sometimes he’s half joking. Sometimes he wasn’t. I’d give him my input and sometimes he would change it, and sometimes he wouldn’t.
“But I know I showed up to the ballpark every day excited thinking that I was going to have an impact, and Boch was the reason for that.”
It’s a new year for the Cubs and Sox, and a time for hopes and dreams and memories of openers of days gone by. No, we’re not getting any younger, but the promise of better days ahead can make us feel young again.
“I think we’re going to surprise people this year with how good we are,” Burke said.
Can’t wait to find out.
