The D-backs’ bullpen cart has already led to shenanigans before Opening Day
Mar 29, 2018, 9:48 AM
Only two exhibition games and a morning with 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station into its career, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ bullpen cart has already been a catalyst for tomfoolery.
Doug & Wolf host Doug Franz stepped aside from his radio duties on Opening Day and floored it without crashing — he thinks he got it up to 20 mph.
We’re LIVE from Chase Field all day on this #OpeningDay, so be sure to tune in to 98.7 FM, the app or online: https://t.co/tDfV4MoZ8W@DougandWolf987 are on the air. Let’s check in on @doug987FM: pic.twitter.com/le7DB1BBlo
— Arizona Sports (@AZSports) March 29, 2018
Thankfully, the cart got its tires broken in before Thursday. Reliever Archie Bradley was the first D-backs pitcher to make use of the new mode of transportation Monday in an exhibition against the Indians.
D-backs president Derrick Hall isn’t sure if the relievers will use the cart to begin the regular season.
“Would you want to be the first one and then if something goes wrong, do you want to say, ‘oh, man, it’s because of that cart’?” Hall told Doug & Wolf on Thursday. “So we may be just driving out jackets.”
“I have not put any pressure (on players to use the cart). We just said, ‘you guys, we get it — you’re too young to see one of these.'”
But Bradley wasn’t the only player to use the cart in the exhibition game, the first of the year at Chase Field. On Monday, relievers Yoshihisa Hirano and Brad Boxberger also made use of the new set of wheels. Hirano, who signed with the Diamondbacks out of Japan this offseason, got a kick out of it by leaving his interpreter in the dust.
“They teased his interpreter and made him run behind it,” Hall said.
Yoshi Hirano makes his entrance via the new bullpen cart. All @Dbacks relievers have used it tonight. pic.twitter.com/iqp0zlN4fl
— FOX Sports Arizona (@FOXSPORTSAZ) March 27, 2018