Fun, with plenty of games
Gaming is one of the culprits behind an interesting — and entertaining — clash inside the Astros’ clubhouse.
Baseball’s leisurely pace and customary early arrival to the park inspires players to fill the idle hours. A round of pepper — tapping brisk grounders on the grass to fielders at close range — is a charming relic of the sport like nickel tickets and fedoras. Cards still are a standard in major league clubhouses, but video games stimulate an Astros team that in 2017 competes at everything with boyish enthusiasm. The clubhouse can feel like a game room. “We get excited when we get here,” said lefty reliever Tony Sipp, considered the ace of the gaming circle. “It probably takes up most of our free time.”
Every player gets a scouting report of the opponent, but as the starting catcher, Brian McCann must pore over it so he can coordinate the pitchers and fielders. A seven-time All-Star in his 13th season, McCann shelved that responsibility before a game against the Angels and sequestered to a black leather recliner.
He spent more than 30 minutes fixated on a mobile version of Mario Kart, the famed Nintendo racing game. He cradled a smartphone in his fingers, tilted it and swept his thumbs over its screen to steer an animated vehicle through a treacherous track. He was determined to beat a race time set by outfielder Jake Marisnick. George Springer and Will Harris sit a few feet from a gigantic television in the center of the clubhouse to continue their PlayStation rivalry that dates to 2015. They moved from college football to soccer and, now, to an NHL game. Springer brings the console on the road. Multiple times this season, Springer shouted for Harris to grab a controller, and Harris had to decline in favor of a throwing regimen on the field. Springer wilted like a son whose father passed up backyard catch for another day at the office. “Oh, come on,” Springer griped. Springer dominates Harris. “He’s never beaten me at anything besides NCAA Football, which he’s beaten me twice,” Springer asserted.
“It makes it that much sweeter when I beat him,” Harris said.
CLUBHOUSE 'CLASH'
Free mobile games attract the most participation. None stokes camaraderie and contention more than “Clash Royale.”
In “Clash,” troops of fantastical characters cast spells to destroy enemy towers and protect their own. Bouts last around three minutes, which makes for frequent contests and one last rematch before batting practice.
“Whenever I’m not doing anything,” starting pitcher Brad Peacock said, “I play ‘Clash Royale.’ ”
“It’s good competition to see who’s better,” third baseman Alex Bregman said.
Harris introduced Bregman to the game last month. It is not surprising that Bregman, a former top prospect, quickly grasped the strategies. After he vanquished Harris in a hardfought affair, Bregman strode across the clubhouse rug to inform Sipp.
“Did you use the witch?” Sipp asked.
Bregman shook his head and grinned.
Sipp, Harris and Peacock have lockers grouped together, so they typically lean back in chairs situated beside each other during battles. Bregman, Marisnick and starting pitcher Mike Fiers wage war from lockers at farther edges of the clubhouse.
All interactions during play are done without looking away from screens. Thumbs thump. Eyes widen. Trash talk stirs.
“I almost three-towered him,” Harris boasted, with his chin out and feet kicked up on a laundry basket
during a win over Peacock.
“I need to change up my mix,” Peacock bemoaned, referencing the troops he deployed. “A dragon may not work every time.”
Although players say they like the game because it kills time, they downplay the daily hours they devote to it. To improve their arsenals, “Clash” users require coins, which they can acquire in three ways: waiting as long as 24 hours to unlock chests filled with bounty, buying upgrades from the App Store, and defeating enemies.
Sipp does all three. He recently waited eight hours to receive 40 coins. For an upgrade to “Level 13,” he needed nearly 2,500 more.
By putting in more time and, occasionally, money, Sipp has amassed the strongest troops in the clubhouse.
“Mine pack a little more punch because I’ve been upgrading,” Sipp said. “There’s a $20 chest that I buy every time it comes out. It gives you coins and a certain amount of epics, gems and fairy queens.”
Fiers, a newcomer to “Clash,” relies on precious chests to catch up in the arms race.
“When I wake up, I have to check if I got an upgrade,” Fiers said. “Throughout the day you wait, and later that night you can open the box because eight hours is up.”
The players also bolster their troops by competing against members of the public, who may not recognize them by their usernames.
Former Astros reliever Pat Neshek, who is with the Phillies this season, goes by King Lava Hound. The eccentric sidearmer gets credit in Houston for propagating an earlier iteration of the game in 2015.
He manages his own 50-user online “Clash” group, known as a “clan.” King Lava Hound is a ruthless monarch: He banished Marisnick for not competing enough. Marisnick then started his own clan so that all
the Astros’ gamers could play together, except for Sipp, who prefers Neshek’s cutthroat standards.
“(Reliever Jordan) Jankowski got voted out in spring training,” Sipp said. “It was a big deal.”
BACKLASH
Love for gaming is not universal throughout baseball. Angels first baseman C.J. Cron wishes he were not the only avid gamer on his team. “We play cards,” Cron said. Cron attended the University of Utah, which became the first Power Five conference school to offer athletic scholarships for e-sports, the burgeoning multibillion-dollar industry of competitive video gaming.
“It’s grown like crazy,” he said. “There’s leagues for almost every game now.”
Despite the rapidly increasing appeal, there is discord even in the Astros’ clubhouse. Springer considers it “insulting” to compare the sports video games he plays with “Clash.” “I call it ‘Dorks,’ ” Springer said. “George has never played it,” Marisnick chimed in. “He’s ignorant.”
“I watched them play it for three years,” Springer retorted. “I’m good.”
Luke Gregerson disdains “Clash.” He gets incredulous over the craze, which has left him distinctly on one side of a clubhouse culture clash.
He vituperates the gamers from his chair like the old man on the porch.
“They’re grown men playing with fairy queens and princesses,” he said.
His teammates smile devilishly when they hear this. They have goaded Gregerson for years with their crossfire of gaming vernacular.
“Same game, different nerds playing, different fairy queens and minion hoards,” he ranted. “Hard to not know the words when they’re sitting here, yelling them in your ear back and forth.”
He overheard a recent discussion about “Clash” that alarmed him.
“You’re feeding into the craze that’s happening right now, and you’re just going to make it worse,” he vociferated.
Then he raised a newspaper to his face, as if scanning the headlines.
“Oh, look,” he said, “Bette Midler is playing ‘Clash.’ Who gives a (expletive)!”
He stormed off for the commode, newspaper crunched in hand.
“You notice the jealousy?” Sipp said. “He’s not in our clan.”
FAMILY PASTIME
Gregerson adheres to his own handheld entertainment. He fills out the daily USA Today crossword puzzle. When he was a boy, his parents settled into the couch with an issue of Star magazine. “Great crossword puzzle,” he said. They laid out a combination of four red encyclopedias and gold-colored dictionaries. Gregerson peered over their shoulders quietly, until he was old enough to venture guesses. “First, you had to find out where Mom or Dad was on the puzzle,” he said. “You don’t want to be trying to answer questions down in the bottom-right corner when they’re working on the topleft corner.” His paternal grandparents started the tradition. He could do puzzles on his phone, but he likes opening up the inky pages.
“That’s the one thing I look forward to doing every day,” he said. Gregerson divorces himself from the gamers, but he is just like them. For nine innings, the men enjoy life like kids in a sandlot. The rest of the time, they search for something — anything — to do while they wait for the next of 162 games to start. The scouting reports can wait. “I probably pay closer attention to that,” Gregerson said. He pointed at the folded crossword puzzle in his locker.