San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Giants’ one-of-a-kind trunk
Only team with case for bats that looks like it belongs to a band
A colorful piece of equipment stationed right near the San Francisco Giants dugout, home and away, appears far more Metallica or Tony Hawk than baseball-related. It easily could contain a band's amps or cool skateboard gear.
“It really looks like something roadies would be wheeling around,” Giants outfielder Austin Slater said.
The sticker-slathered case holds the Giants' game-day bats, about 70 of them. It's lovingly tended by equipment manager Brad Grems, who has added hundreds of decals to it over the years. Some players have, too — Mauricio Dubón, an Avengers fan, contributed some of his favorites.
Other players have made additions in less constructive ways, going all the way back to the first week Grems had it.
“I've had some players that have taken their anger out against it, which gives it some character,” Grems said. “I had just gotten it and it was on the first trip to Colorado when a former pitcher we had — I won't say who — had a bad outing and proceeded to take his bat to it and put a huge dent in the side.
“It was 4 days old, so I wasn't too happy about it at the time, but I mean, what are you going to do? That pitcher has got two big dents on there.”
Just guessing, but was it Madison Bumgarner?
“Ummmm,” Grems said. “Well, he got it pretty good.”
The trunk's vibe is surfer/ skater/Grateful Dead, plus a
whole lot of Hawaii, including several nods to Grems’ love of shaved ice. Manager Gabe Kapler enjoys the “Thrasher” magazine stickers, which take him back to his skateboarding youth in Southern California. And there’s even some baseball, with bat companies chipping in.
Other teams have tried their best to sneak their own logos onto the bat box when Giants staffers aren’t looking, and Grems painstakingly scrapes them off. The Dodgers, of course, plastered on a bunch — “They superglued them. You can still see the glue marks,” Grems said.
Another opponent was stealthier.
“You can’t see it, but the Brewers put a bunch of their stickers on the bottom,” Grems said. “It’s become a fun game for people who know me to put stuff on there to mess with me.”
Grems got the idea because he has spent his fair share of time backstage at concerts, and loves the look of the bins and containers covered with passes from previous tours. “It just looks cooler,” he said. “And then it kind of became a thing.”
Giants players have two kinds of reactions to the bat trunk.
Joc Pederson: “It just holds the bats. Honestly, that’s all there is to it.”
J.D. Davis: “It’s so cool! I want one like that! I’m definitely a fan.”
Davis and Pederson have the most game-day bats in the trunk. It holds batting gloves and bat wraps in the top compartment and has nine slots in the base, so most hitters share a slot with another player. Davis said he adds more bats to the trunk — he had seven in the trunk during a recent count — because he tends to forget to put enough bats in his own bat bag, which stays in the clubhouse, and he’s a little paranoid about not having one if he breaks another. Pederson famously uses everyone’s bats — but he doesn’t snatch them from the game-day trunk and sounds horrified at the suggestion.
“I only take them out of guys’ bat bags,” he said, explaining that the bats then get relabeled
with his number on the knob before going into the trunk. “Never from the game-day bats.”
Players can be very particular about their game-day bats. They’ve been prepared, they’ve had pine tar applied, and
they’ve been carefully selected: Some players weigh each bat, looking for the slightest variation. Some, like Pederson, hold them up to their ears and tap them. “The higher the pitch, the denser the wood,” he said.
Davis said that every model can feel different, so he likes to bring several options in case he’s looking for something new “depending on how a series is going or how my body is feeling. And if the bat is feeling great that series and I break it the first game, I don’t want to be SOL,” he said. “But I don’t do the whole Joc thing and listen to it — I’ll just go ask Joc if he thinks it’s a good one or a bad one.”
Grems specifically obtained a trunk that locks, because it
holds such important equipment, and he notes that the bright box would be nearly impossible to lose — it’s the only one of its kind in the major leagues. He is asked about the trunk in every city. One clubhouse attendant even started an Instagram account for it a few years back.
“It’s got stickers from all walks of life,” Slater said. “It’s got a lot of personality. It looks like it belongs to a band — and with the amount of time we’re on the road, that’s kind of how we feel during the season.”