Jeremy Hazelbaker sent half of his Old Hickory bats to Pittsburgh and half of them to Memphis.
When he arrived in Tampa, Florida on Thursday for the St. Louis Cardinals’ final spring training game, he didn’t know if he would be joining the big-league team on a flight to Pittsburgh for MLB’s Opening Day on Sunday, or retreating back to Jupiter, Florida and then Triple-A Memphis to begin his eighth season in the minor leagues.
He wore a suit and tie to adhere to the team’s travel code. He packed everything he had lived off of the past two months into several suitcases, just in case he was leaving Florida for good.