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Stealing Pots

The crack of the bat, Yankees-Red Sox, peanuts and Cracker Jack (which, incidentally, contain peanuts), Dominican short-stops fielding two-hoppers barehanded and slinging a bulls-eye sidearm into the glove of a waiting first baseman.

Discussion of these topics can only mean one thing: spring has sprung, the grass has riz, and the Major Leagues are back in biz. But while hitters are working on their cuts and pitchers are regaining their form on the mound, there is one thought floating through the mind of many a pro ballplayer. Even if they are getting paid millions to hit the cut-off man, a lot of them are thinking about playing poker.

"Every team has guys that love to play cards," says retired pitcher and two-time Cy Young Award winner Bret Saberhagen. "It's just the way it is. You spend so many hours together and it's a way to pass the time." In a sport where the average player spends a fair share of their time sitting and waiting, poker has become the national pastime behind the national pastime. Be it in the clubhouse, on the flight during a road trip, or in the hotel the night before the game, players all over baseball are spending hours playing Hold 'em. "Every flight we go on, we have our table set up on the airplane. On a five hour flight, we're playing poker for five hours," says Oakland A's outfielder Bobby Kielty. "It makes a five-hour flight feel like it's a half an hour. They could be flying us to Japan and we wouldn't even know it."

That appears to be the norm among Major Leaguers. Whether the team owner spoils the team with a luxurious private jet or is letting them toil on a charter flight, players always find time to set up a game. And if that game extends from the flight into the hotel room? Well, that's a risk most players are willing to take. "Every once in a while, if we're fired up during a flight, we'll just continue it into the hotel room and play up to 5 o'clock at night," says Kielty. "Basically whoever has the most years in the leagues gets to choose where he sits. I wouldn't call it cheap entertainment, but it's definitely good entertainment."

As is the nature of professional sports, it's only a matter of time before one of the table regulars gets traded to another team. When that happens, a ballclub's poker players scramble to find a replacement. But it usually doesn't take long to find someone. "Eric Byrnes was a big player and when he got traded to Colorado, Joe Kennedy was kind of his replacement," says Kielty of the 2005 trade that exchanged Byrnes for Kennedy. "If somebody gets traded, we hope the guy that comes in is a poker player."

"Usually it's not a scramble to find someone. It's always good to get fresh meat in there," says Phillies pitcher Cory Lidle, who has hosted a charity poker tournament the past two years. Having played for six teams in his career, Lidle, who even witnessed fistfights over a poker game while playing with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, knows a thing or two about having to find new poker buddies. It's one of the reasons he enjoys his annual tournament at the Palms, the same venue that held a similar tournament last year hosted by Seattle Mariners pitcher Eddie Guardado. "It looked like an old Twins reunion. We all played on the Twins together for a long time and everybody's on a different team now," says Guardado of the tournament, which included former teammates like the Twins' Torii Hunter and Boston Red Sox superstar David "Papi" Ortiz. "I was with Twins for 11 years. We would order room service on the road and that was our night. We could go until three in the morning."