Luke Voit pulled his silver, jacked-up Chevy truck into the parking lot, dropped the rumbling engine into reverse and backed into a parking spot out front of the Brentwood hitting academy that serves as his offseason baseball laboratory.
“Dang, Meat,” razzed Spencer Thomson as the 26-year-old Cardinals first baseman and pinch-hitter walked inside.
You better go way back with a 6-foot-3 major leaguer to risk calling him a meathead, even in an endearing way, but that’s the kind of familiarity found here. Thomson helped coach Voit’s eighth-grade baseball team. Twelve years later, Voit’s bobblehead sits at the front desk, where a fan recently left behind a rookie card he hoped Voit would sign.