Rejoice, ye haters of winter! Throw out your tired hats and snow-worn jackets. Beat out the stubborn sand hiding in the soles of your boots. Pictures of dancing palm trees, visions of sun-swept fields and cloudless skies await. Spring Training is here, and with it comes the summer-ready feel of baseball.
But what is the point of Spring Training? Training represents the happy beacon of light that gives baseball fans the illusion of breaking free from their winter shells. But how else does the month-long camp provide Major League teams with the ability to contend? For Pete Walker and the Toronto Blue Jays, Spring Training is the key time of the year to look at the cards the team has and to figure out how best to use them. Toronto knows they have the ingredients to be a contender; the team only needs to mold itself into one.
Pete Walker, Toronto’s pitching coach, who was gracious enough to sit down and chat with me, knows the New London area as well as anyone. A graduate from East Lyme High School, he is one of several MLB players from this corner of Connecticut. Drafted by the Mets out of the University of Connecticut, Walker made his mark in the big leagues as a relief pitcher for the Blue Jays. In over 100 appearances between 2002 and 2006, Toronto relied on him as the anchor of their bullpen.
But it is in this community that Walker has perhaps made his biggest impact. After retiring from playing the game, he and his brother Andy opened America’s Game, a youth baseball facility in Old Lyme. Walker recalls that growing up, “There wasn’t much in the area” for player development.
He wanted to start this program because “[He] love[s] teaching the game, and it’s an opportunity to give back.” During their years at America’s Game, Walker and his brother have taught young players to “make sure the foundation is there and make sure they have fun playing the game.”
We are in an especially unique area, as Walker is not the only breakout star from New London County. In fact, two other former Blue Jays, Rajai Davis and John MacDonald, call southeast Connecticut home. Davis graduated from New London High School, and McDonald followed Walker at East Lyme. Yet perhaps most notably, Mets pitcher Matt Harvey, a true sensation in New York and a godsend to the Mets organization, played at Fitch Senior High School across the Thames River in Groton.
Is all of this talent packed into a small corner of a small state a coincidence? Walker likes to think of it as a “natural progression,” a kind of cycle that provides young players with more hope as more local heroes make it to the big leagues. In this area that has “quietly become a hotbed for baseball,” Walker feels that “Kids realize it’s possible. These kids know that there is a chance to make it big, since people from their own communities have done it before them.”
Walker grabbed a great opportunity in 2011, re-entering the Blue Jays organization as a bullpen coach, which led to his current position as the team’s pitching coach. And so here he is in Spring Training, at the genesis of a brand new season, a blank slate of opportunity for a team on the rise.
That opportunity is heightened with the addition of catcher Russell Martin, who Walker believes is a “vital piece to this team winning, with a young pitching staff and some inexperienced relief arms.” Martin is a three-time All Star, and for years has been considered a top producing catcher, adding to what Walker believes is a team offense “as good as anybody in baseball.”
So, Toronto is ready to make a move with our local contributions. A perfect storm of offseason acquisitions and lighter competition could equal a special season. Yet much of their success will hinge on their young pitchers, those who will work with Walker to make sure they are “just playing to their capabilities without necessarily exceeding expectations.” And that is what Spring Training is for: to work with players on establishing goals and doing their jobs. Throughout camp, Walker and the other Toronto coaches will “have many discussions with the players about what we think they’re capable of doing,” in order to prepare them for the long haul of the season.
Spring Training is a time of excitement and anticipation for every team—and with these young and unproven players, Toronto has a special amount of anticipation, not quite knowing what to expect. With this kind of youth, there are always breakout seasons. There are always disappointments.
“Certainly it doesn’t always pan out,” says Walker, and yet “it wouldn’t surprise us to see them have outstanding seasons.” Time will tell.
But it won’t only be time determining Toronto’s success this year. In the American League East division, the Blue Jays will have to outcompete the restocked and rebounding Red Sox, a wheelchair-ridden Yankees team, the declining Rays and the rising Orioles, last year’s division champion. And to outcompete them, they have to begin now. They have to begin under the white Florida sun, as the palm trees swoon in the background and the warm summer breeze kicks up the infield sand in playful wisps. This is the time where it comes together for team, player and coach. Where discussions begin and goals are set. Where the slate is clean and life runs on anticipation and dreams.
Walker still lives in the area during the offseason, and plans to replant his baseball roots here when his coaching ride is over.
“At some point down the road,” he hopes, “I’m sure I’ll open up another place” in this hotbed of baseball. In doing so, he will continue the tradition of baseball passion and success in the New London area.
For now, Walker can only focus on this season and the pitching staff he has in front of him. To build a contender, his job begins in the Florida sun. And our dreams of summer baseball begin now. •
