On the road again
An inside look at traveling like a big leaguer
With the Marlins hitting the road for the first time in 2023 this week, I take you behind the scenes and explain what it’s like to travel with a major league team.
When a major league team hits the road, you’re typically looking at a traveling party that includes 50-60 people. Players, coaches, trainers, a handful of front office staffers, support staff and radio and television broadcasters.
Trips are orchestrated by the club’s director of team travel, and the Marlins have been blessed to have 3 tremendous “traveling secretaries” over the years. Bill “Boomer” Beck, a baseball legend, oversaw team travel from the inaugural season through 2010. He passed the baton to Manny Colon, who carried on Boomer’s legacy brilliantly from 2011 through 2020. The current director of team travel, the outstanding Max Thomas, joined the club in 2021.
They coordinate buses, planes, hotels, meal money and anything and everything else that might possibly come up while the team is away from home.
I’m going to walk you through a typical trip, and we’ll use the Marlins’ current 7-day visit to New York and Philadelphia as a point of reference.
When everyone who is traveling arrives at the ballpark on “get-away day,” in this case, prior to Wednesday’s 1:10 game against the Twins, they drop off their suitcase at the designated location in the players’ parking lot at loanDepot park. That will be the last time you see your suitcase until you arrive at the hotel in New York Wednesday night.
During the game, all of the suitcases are trucked to the airport and loaded onto the plane so that, when the game ends, all that needs to be loaded is the team’s baseball equipment and members of the traveling party themselves.
Approximately an hour after the game concludes, 3 buses make the short drive from the ballpark to Miami International Airport. Bus 1 is the players’ bus. Bus 2 is for members of the front office and the coaching staff. Bus 3 is for the broadcasters and assorted other staff members.
Upon arrival at MIA, the buses pull right up to the foot of the plane. There is a TSA security check, but only a handful of members of the traveling party are randomly chosen to be wanded and have their carry-on bag checked prior to each flight. One-by-one everyone shows their ID and are either directed to board the plane or to step to the side for a security check.
Typically, each member of the traveling party is pulled out of line to be checked 4 or 5 times over the course of a season although, several years ago, (then) Fox Sports Florida statistician and graphics producer Ken Lee was “randomly” selected to be checked on 7 or 8 consecutive trips. Ken’s enthusiasm for the process began to wane around the 5th or 6th selection. Only Manny Colon knows the full story.
Eventually, everyone boards the plane, which typically features first-class seating throughout. There are a couple of different configurations, but usually the manager, coaches and baseball operations staffers sit in the front of the plane. The players occupy the middle. And assorted staff members and the broadcasters sit in the back.
In the old days, prior to taking off on the first leg of a road trip, Boomer or Manny would walk through the plane and hand everyone an envelope with their per diem for the trip. In recent years, the money gets direct deposited into your bank account on the first day of a trip. There was always something special about getting that envelope back in the day.
My seatmate on the charter was Dave Van Horne for all the years we traveled together. I had the window and Dave had the aisle.
Following Dave’s retirement, I lost a bet and had to share a row with Paul Severino. Sevi had the window, and I had the aisle.
There’s a lot of food on these flights. Typically, as everyone boards, there are pre-flight snacks. As you make your way to your seat there are various options you can grab. Unless it’s a Sunday, there’s usually a selection of Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, nuggets and salads (I’m partial to the market salad with apples and strawberries). Some people opt for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Sometimes there may be subs or cheese steaks or rice bowls or another occasional wild card. When Larry Beinfest was the club’s President of Baseball Operations, he often sprang for In-N-Out Burgers as far as the eye could see when we’d fly out of California.
There’s always a wide assortment of chips, candy bars and other snacks available for everyone to grab before take off as well.
One of the best thing about flying a charter all season is the team typically has the same flight crew for every trip. Flight attendants Matt, Emma, Yvette, Richard and Ernie genuinely become part of the family. Generally, they fly home after dropping the team off, but they’ll occasionally stay in a city with the team for 3 or 4 days and come out to a ballgame. I always enjoyed bringing our crew up to the radio booth to hang out for a couple of innings. On those nights, I’d wait to ask our nightly trivia question until they arrived because Emma always wanted to take a shot at answering.
Because of their familiarity with everyone, the crew has drinks waiting for everyone at their seats when the team boards. They know if you like bottled water or grape Gatorade or whatever you may prefer.
While in flight, coaches tend to watch video and study scouting reports of upcoming opponents. Players tend to play a lot of cards with a handful of card tables set up throughout their section. As for the broadcasters, Sevi and I would generally try to get some work done. Others might watch movies or read. With Wifi access on the charter, there’s no shortage of options.
There are multiple in-flight meals from which to choose. Some more elaborate than others. You can typically default to a burger or a salad. Below is the menu from the first trip of last season.
After your meal, the flight attendants pass through the cabin with cookies and ice cream novelties.
That’s when Severino does this whole “no thank you” song and dance before he asks for 2 chocolate chips.
Before you know it, Sevi has finished his 4th cookie, he’s trying to locate Yvette to see if she may have any chocolate chips left, and we’ve begun our initial descent.
When the plane touches down, unless it’s a day the traveling secretary would like to forget, the team is greeted by 3 buses. Everyone knows which bus to board, and it’s on to the hotel. Two trucks are also waiting, one to take the baseball equipment directly to the ballpark, the other to transport everybody’s suitcases to the hotel.
Upon arriving at the hotel, the team generally enters through a side entrance where tables are set up holding envelopes with each individual’s room key. There’s also often an assortment of fruit, snacks and cold drinks people can take to their room. Some set ups are so elaborate, they give you a bag, like you’re shopping at Publix.
Some people go up to their room and drop off their carry-on before immediately returning to the lobby to grab their suitcase as it’s unloaded from the truck, which is usually a few minutes behind the buses. For the first 30 years of my baseball career, I’d call down to the bell desk and ask that my bag be delivered to my room. When you stay at the same hotels for enough years, you tend to get to know the bell staff. It would often be fun to catch up with them.
Bobby at the Vinoy in St. Petersburg was my favorite. He’s a Yankees fan, so we’d always talk about how the Yankees are doing, and he’d show me pictures of his family.
So I mentioned calling down to the bell desk for the first 30 years of my career. In that span, there was only one time my bag couldn’t be found. It was 2008, my first year with the Marlins, and we were at a downtown hotel in St. Louis. When my bag couldn’t be located, I went downstairs where I happened to run into then traveling secretary Bill Beck, who was sitting with then Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez. I shared my tale of woe with Boomer, who made some phone calls. The prospect of not having anything but the clothes on my back at the start of a 6-day road trip wasn’t ideal. Fredi told me to meet him in the lobby at 10 the next morning. He was going to take me to a nearby department store to make sure I had what I needed.
While his offer was very generous, the crisis was averted an hour or 2 later when there was a knock on my hotel room door. There was catcher Paul LoDuca with my bag, which had inadvertently been delivered to his room.
Fredi was off the hook, but I’m grateful for his generous offer to this day.
So now fast forward to 2022. St. Louis again, but this time a different suburban hotel. For the 2nd time in 3 decades, my suitcase was no where to be found. The search continued through the night and into the next morning when I Ubered to a nearby mall and went shopping to ensure I had whatever I’d need to make it through a week on the road. Clothes, shoes, belts, toiletries. Everything. That really stunk.
Oh yeah, there was Gorilla Glue involved as well. The pants I bought were a little long. There was no time for alterations, and since I’m no tailor, I Gorilla Glued the cuffs to make them borderline passable.
I was quite impressed with my work.
Mid-afternoon, shortly before I was to leave for the ballpark, there was a knock on my door. It was the hotel manager and a team of bell men to alert me that my bag had been found. It had been delivered to the wrong room the night before. It was placed in the room of a guest who was not affiliated with the team. The guy didn’t call the front desk. He didn’t do anything. He just left the bag in his room. After he checked out, housekeeping found my suitcase.
So the moral of the story: From that day forward, I took my bag directly off the truck every time we arrived at a new hotel.
After that little diversion, now back to our story…
So after a 1:10 game against the Twins in Miami Wednesday, the Marlins flew to New York, where they’d have a day off on Thursday before starting their series against the Mets Friday afternoon.
If you get in at a decent hour, there’d probably be a nice dinner in New York. If you got in late, probably a $60 room service salad or maybe a couple of slices from Ray’s, just around the corner.
Having traveled as long as I did, and having essentially seen and done everything there is to see and do in every major league city, I’d spend most of my time on the road in my room working unless there was a day off. But I’d make sure to get a good meal or 2 if possible in most cities. I had favorite spots in every stop.
Days off on the road during the grind of a long season are incredibly welcome. I’d do my best to take advantage of those days. If we had a day without a game in New York, I’d generally get lost in the city for several hours, walk through Central Park or wherever my spirit carried me. Lunch with a friend. And there’d always be a show and a great dinner on the itinerary on that off night.
On a typical 7:10 game day on the road, there’ll be a coaching staff bus to the ballpark around noon. Most of the players typically head to the park by bus at 3. The late bus, usually 3:30 or 4 is generally for the broadcasters, baseball ops officials, that night’s starting pitcher and occasionally a couple of other players.
There’s a detailed itinerary distributed at the start of every trip that lays out each day’s schedule. Any changes or updates are passed along via a group text.
Once you get to the ballpark, we all have our pre-game routines. You play the game and afterward you’re on one of 3 buses back to the hotel. They typically head back approximately 30, 45 and 60 minutes after the game ends.
For me, postgame would generally mean a late dinner and a few hours of work before going to sleep and doing it again the next day.
After the Sunday game in New York this weekend, the Marlins will head on to Philadelphia for 3 agains the Phillies before making the flight home.
There’ll be Chick-Fil-A and chocolate chip cookies for all on the way back to Miami.
And after a week or so at home, it’ll be time to hit the road again, this time for fun times in Cleveland and Atlanta.
Great, fantastic, very rarely does a fan have access to that kind of information, that kind of anecdotes, thank you very much for sharing Geff. I remember one in which José Fernández served lunch or breakfast to you and Geff during the trip. From this excellent story I was curious: what were your and Dave's pre-game routines? Best regards and thanks again
Loved this article! You have a flair for writing! A++
I do miss your voice though.
Looking forward to the article about Jose.