In Major League Baseball, spring training is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for roster and position spots, and gives existing team players practice time prior to competitive play. Spring training has always attracted fan attention, drawing crowds who travel to the warmer climates to enjoy the weather and watch their favorite teams play, and spring training usually coincides with spring break for many college students.
Spring training typically lasts about six weeks, starting in mid February and running until just before the season opening day (and often right at the end of spring training, some teams will play spring training games on the same day other teams have opening day of the season), traditionally the first week of April. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training first because pitchers benefit from a longer training period. A few days later, the position players arrive and team practice begins. Team members normally wear their batting practice uniforms for the duration of spring training and only wear their normal jerseys beginning on Opening Day.
Read more about Spring Training: History, Spring Training Locations By Team, Statistics, Extended Spring Training
Famous quotes containing the words spring and/or training:
“I swear to keep the dead upon my mind,/Disdain for all time to be overglad./Among spring flowers, under summer trees./By chilling autumn waters, in the frosts/Of supercilious winter—all my days/I’ll have as mentors those reproving ghosts.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“An educational method that shall have liberty as its basis must intervene to help the child to a conquest of liberty. That is to say, his training must be such as shall help him to diminish as much as possible the social bonds which limit his activity.”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)