The last couple games of spring training always have a feeling to me like the last few days of college, when people are loading up cars and submitting final papers and sitting those last few exams—a liminal space, a transition between what was and what will be. Even the weather is in on the illusion today, the ample sunshine in Seattle tricking me into thinking it’s June and summer break instead of March and barely spring break.
Today it was Marco Gonzales who drew the unfortunate straw of the last-scheduled exam; no longer an underclassman breezing through entry-level classes and getting out of town early to start summer break/Opening Day ahead of everyone else, Marco is now the grizzled senior having to make last-minute corrections to his thesis project while watching the likes of Logan Gilbert and George Kirby skip off to Seattle, footloose and fancy-free.