Tigers Pack Up Comerica Park Clubhouse For Spring Training (Video)
By Edward Cardenas
DETROIT (CBS Detroit) - It's starting to look like the start of baseball season deep below the snow-covered playing field at Comerica Park.
Team personnel were busy Tuesday packing bats, uniforms, chairs - and even a hat stretcher - in the Tigers clubhouse into a variety of boxes and bins that were placed into a large moving truck at the stadium's loading dock.
"It takes us all winter to get packed and ready to go," said Jim Schmakel, Tigers clubhouse and equipment manager, who stated the team uses two semis to move equipment from Detroit to Lakeland. "We stuff it stem to stern, top to bottom."
Once the nearly 40,000 pounds of equipment - including up to 800 bats - are securely loaded into place, the truck will begin its trek from the icy north to Tigers spring training home in Lakeland, FL.
When the truck arrives, there is no time to for team personnel to soak up the sun.
Schmakel said the Thursday the truck arrives in Florida, is probably the busiest day of the spring as equipment personnel begin organizing and preparing the locker room for the arrival of pitchers and catchers on Feb. 19.
The next busiest day for the team personnel is when they prepare to re-pack the truck at the end of spring training for the start of the baseball season. They need to move quickly, as the Tigers final spring training game is April 4, with a workout at Comerica Park the following day. The Tigers open the season April 6 against the Twins.
"The minute we finish unpacking and get everything in place we start packing to come back," said Schmakel.
And for someone who has done this for more than three decades, the normal excitement for the coming season is somewhat muted by the death earlier this month of 1984 World Series champion Dave Bergman.
"Dave Bergman is very a good friend," said Schmakel. "We'll miss him."