John Casey isn't sure how one of the baseball team's longest−standing traditions began; it's happened for so many years now that the origins are hazy for the coach, who is now beginning his 28th season with the Jumbos. The event occurs annually — that much is certain — just outside the Best Western Ocean Front in late March, beyond the grainy sand and razor−sharp shells of Virginia Beach and beneath the backdrop of the setting sun.
On the final Friday of Tufts' spring−break trip to Virginia and North Carolina, with winter finally entering hibernation and temperatures still colder than desirable, the baseball team goes swimming. For after a dizzying slate of 11 games in 10 days, it's only fair that the Jumbos partake in a bit of relaxation and unwind in the water.
When the team boards its Amtrak train later tonight, Tufts will, like in the many years before, head South past the Mason−Dixon Line to kick off its season with a schedule that would make even the most seasoned major−league veterans tired. The team will travel just under 2,000 total miles over spring break, heading from Medford to 10 different Div. III schools, all of which are in the middle of their seasons.
Just like the late−night dip into the Atlantic Ocean or one of the other traditions that inevitably emerge while packed into vans rolling down the highways, the spring trip has evolved into another attribute of the baseball team's distinguished culture.
"It's like living with your family," Casey said. "You love them, but they also see your best side and your worst side … Baseball's a social sport. When you come back from a baseball game, you talk more baseball. It's a good bonding experience and becoming a team is something we always talk about."
Being on the road, without homework or other collegiate worries, allows the Jumbos to get a taste, for a few days, of the professional baseball experience. The hotels, the vans and the day−night doubleheaders make dreams come true.
"The spring trip is really, for most of us, the best part of the season," senior co−captain shortstop Dave LeResche said. "You almost feel like a minor league baseball player. You're waking up, eating, playing baseball and sleeping."
Such a demanding schedule, on the surface, should theoretically take an emotional and physical toll on a roster. But this is what the players live for; after months of cramped practices and outfield−less scrimmages in the Carzo Cage, Casey's squad will finally step between the lines to officially start yet another season.
"When we first started going a zillion years ago, it was more of a ‘spring trip,' where guys would just find the lineup and do all of that stuff," Casey said. "With the way the NCAA is now, with every game counting, Lynchburg on Friday is our opening game, and that's how we prepare for it. It's a little bit different now."
The constant travel mirrors the grind of road trips in the NESCAC, and Casey has made a concerted effort to accentuate that at various stages throughout the trip. To wit, the Jumbos will deliberately spend Thursday night away from Lynchburg, the site of the team's season−opener on Friday, to simulate the experience of waking up early for games that becomes commonplace during the conference slate.
"We move operations a few times, but there's a method to the madness," Casey said. "I think it's like living what you always wanted to do. If you're playing baseball, wouldn't you want to keep playing it at a higher level? What more do you want if you're a baseball player? This is it. This mirrors what you were dreaming about when you were eight years old, dreaming about putting on a major−league uniform."
With little else to do but focus on the game, the Jumbos are afforded ample opportunities to prove themselves on the field before they return to the Hill and begin conference action. When LeResche was a freshman, for instance, then−sophomore catcher Alex Perry (LA '10) was sidelined with an injured hamstring. LeResche, who had never caught before in his career, had to suit up behind the plate for four games during the trip. His strong efforts caused the coaching staff to reshuffle the starting infield to make room for LeResche, who ended up starting 29 games in 2008.
The Jumbos used to make the 10−plus−hour drive down to Virginia, but school rules forced the team to switch to flying in 2009. This season, for the first time ever, they will make the journey by train. Regardless of the method of transportation, though, the importance of spending time with teammates in an exclusively baseball−laced environment, away from other on−campus distractions, isn't lost on the Jumbos.
"It's just a bunch of guys hanging out," said senior pitcher Ed Bernstein, who will be making his fourth trip this season. "Every year, Coach impresses on us how important it is to become a team, how important it is to trust each other and play together. So you're around people all the time who you love to play with."
For a program that, along with a history of success, preaches the importance of camaraderie, there is no better arena to foster friendship than in cramped vans.
Each year, the team holds its annual "van draft" to select players to fill the cars, and each class must be represented in each van. LeResche fondly recalls what he describes as a distinct van culture, which extends to everything from music selection to baffling word games.
"Every van has a unique culture, different vans have their own things, it's the place where you're with guys for hours at a time," Bernstein said. "The team's a team. I think we pride ourselves on not being cliquey."
In a sport Casey describes as containing more frustration and failure than any other, such traditions — like when parents join the team for dinner or the annual Sunday brunch towards the tail end of the trip — preach the subliminal message of fun through sport.
"All [the players] do is turn it into something that's fun," Casey said. "You can't have a good team if you don't enjoy being around each other. We tell them all the time, ‘You can't force team.' The first thing is you don't have to love everybody but you have to respect everybody. But if you try to incorporate it and guys start to have fun with each other."
For the seniors, the spring trip has provided them with some of their best memories in the program. In 2010, the Jumbos racked up an 8−2 record, the most victories earned on the trip since 2000. That set the tone for a record−setting campaign in which Tufts set a new program record for wins.
"Some of the best memories I have, personally, are from spring trip games or being in Virginia Beach with the guys," LeResche said. "You're going to be thinking about baseball and talking about baseball, which is great. We really use that as a bonding experience. The intangibles really come out there."
