JUPITER, Fla. • The cacophony begins before sunrise with the beeping and bleating from a medley of iPhone tones, and if he still doesn’t stir — cue the blaring rap music.
This could go on for an hour until 7:20 a.m. Florida time when, as a failsafe, Jordan Hicks has his “oh (shoot)” alarm programmed. There are eight alarms set on his phone and if he stayed in a hotel room there would be an alarm clock and a wakeup call as Nos. 9 and 10. A year after being late to spring workouts drew the ire of teammates and got him bounced from big-league camp, the Cardinals’ rising comet of a closer has his clocks set: quarter past lesson learned and quarter till elite.