JUPITER, Fla. • It took putting the Cardinals in a locked room to set them free from routine.
As part of an ongoing attempt this spring to learn from last year’s uneasy and unsteady spring training, the Cardinals took part in a team-building exercise Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla., that had them split up into teams and escape locked-room puzzles. Adam Wainwright’s idea and Mike Matheny’s planning had the players board a bus without any idea where they were going. When they arrived at Legends of Xscape they were put into rooms, each of which had a theme to solve: Area 51 (save aliens), Helter Skelter (survive a horror), Pirate’s Booty (find the treasure) and others.