For Pirates, it’s all hands on deck to get LECOM Park ready for spring training

The hours are ticking away to the start of spring training for the Pittsburgh Pirates and, generously speaking, the press box at LECOM Park is a mess.

Boxes are propped on tables where Pittsburgh staffers will sit about 24 hours later, and laptops taking up spots where people will be sitting are a reminder of what still needs to be done before the Pirates’ Grapefruit League slate opens.

“We’ve got a game tomorrow?” Jim Trdinich, the club’s director of media relations, jokes as he takes a pass through the press box at LECOM Park on Friday morning.

He rummages through one box where he may sit Saturday, pulls out a smaller box of cassette tapes and laughs. It’s the spring training 2009 mix, which includes such hits as O.A.R.’s “Shattered (Turn the Car Around)” and Rihanna’s “Disturbia.”

The day before the spring opener around MLB is akin to a day of orientation at high school, the day before campers arrive at summer camp or the day before a grand opening at any business. The shell is there and nothing is particularly behind schedule, but organized chaos is in the air. The final preparations must be put in place for one of the most important days of the year.

By early Saturday morning, the press box will be less cluttered, the players’ bags will be unloaded in the Bill McKechnie Home Clubhouse at LECOM Park and the video board will be ready for its first live action.

Spring training truly begins for LECOM Park on Saturday at 1:05 p.m. when Pittsburgh hosts the Baltimore Orioles for half of a split-squad game in Bradenton. The home lineup includes the new outfield alignment of Gregory Polanco, Starling Marte and Andrew McCutchen, and Steven Brault is scheduled to be the starting pitcher. The other half of the roster will travel south to Port Charlotte for a 1:05 p.m. start against the Tampa Bay Rays.

For the staff getting LECOM Park ready for the season, though, a split-squad season-opener isn’t any different than a regular one, and this year the final day of preparation meant a few final kinks to work out.

What’s new?

It’s the first thing anyone familiar with the ballpark in Bradenton will notice when he or she steps into the concourse with a clean sight line to the field (after passing through the new metal detectors at the entrance). On Friday morning, Pirates went through their final workout before games begin with a giant video board towering over them in center field, projecting a team logo just to show everyone how it will look.

“Love it. Absolutely,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “Looks great. Just keep adding on.”

As spring training progresses, the board will be used to display statistics about the players on the mound and at the plate. There will be an out-of-town scoreboard for spectators to keep track of how other teams are faring. And, of course, there will be instant replays.

Between innings, LECOM Park will have new ways to entertain its fans with an animated pirate-ship race and hat shuffle. And fans will be able to watch the stadium emcee’s travels through the complex for the many between-inning promotions.

“You had to direct your attention to wherever they were. Now you can see it up there,” said Nate March, the Bradenton Marauders’ coordinator of communications and radio broadcaster. “It just adds a visual aspect to pretty much every part of our entertainment.”

March added coordination of the ballpark’s new video board to his job description this offseason. The Pirates hired four full-time game-day staff members and two interns to run the board from the back end and film from field level. There will be two cameras — one high above home plate and one roaming field level — to provide video for replays and highlights, and the rest of the staff will be in the press box pulling up elements to display on the screen or feeding statistics to the board.

Everything has come together quickly for the video board at LECOM Park. The construction project was approved during the summer using $1 million of public funding, but the actual building didn’t begin until the supports were put in Feb. 10. Four days later, March and his staff did a dry run from the press box during a high school game at the stadium even though video couldn’t yet be projected on to the screen.

On Thursday, March ran a “dress rehearsal.” With a game from last year playing in the press box, the staff followed along, operating the board in real time as they plan to run it Saturday.

“It went up in a hurry,” March said. “You can see we’re still a little bit disarrayed back here. That’ll all be tidied up by tomorrow.”

What’s the same?

Almost everything else at LECOM Park, other than its name, will be the same this spring.

The parking layout is identical to past years with makeshift lots scattered around the neighborhood. Inside the stadium, the process of filling concession stands is unchanged, and the concession locations and menus will be familiar. Some items, such as sodas and water bottles, have been stored for more than a week. Perishable items have come in during the past few days and will be restocked throughout the preseason.

And the prep for on the field was even more straightforward

“We consider ourselves a year-round operation here,” said Marauders general manager Rachelle Madrigal, who is also the Florida director of sales and marketing. “We keep things in shape.”

This story was originally published February 24, 2017 at 6:03 PM with the headline "For Pirates, it’s all hands on deck to get LECOM Park ready for spring training."