PEORIA, Ariz. – The Moyer family is on the move again.
They’re packing boxes in their Scottsdale apartment and, soon, baseball equipment, clothes, toys, musical instruments, strollers and high chairs will be on a truck headed toward Seattle.
It’s a ritual that has become as familiar to Jamie Moyer as the No. 50 he wears for the Seattle Mariners.
In early February, he and his wife and six children shipped their necessities, and themselves, to Arizona for a six-week stay. In late March, they’ll do it again for the return home.
This is Moyer’s 21st year of pro baseball, going back to 1984, when his life of locations and relocations began.
“Baseball has taught us to be very adaptable,” said his wife, Karen. “We have packed boxes and unpacked them 67 times.”
That includes trips from their offseason home to spring training, from spring training to their regular-season home, plus the occasional midseason trades or demotions to the minor leagues.
This week, when the Mariners leave spring training to begin the regular season, the Moyers will move for the 68th time.
Now 42 years old, Moyer and his wife firmly believe that the family must remain together, even though it might be easier for the kids to maintain their routine in Seattle while Jamie prepares for the season in Arizona.
Arizona has been home since mid-February for Jamie, Karen and their children: sons Dillon (13), Hutton (11) and McCabe (1), and daughters Timoney (9), Duffy (7) and Grady (eight months).
“I love it,” Karen Moyer said. “I will miss that when we finally leave the game because we enjoy each other so much.”
This is far from a mid-winter vacation in the sun. It’s a commitment.
The older kids are enrolled in school here, but they also keep up with work from their school in Seattle, and homework often takes three hours in the evenings. They also practice their violins and play on soccer teams here.
“It is a commitment, but we believe that being a family, you need to be together as much as possible,” Jamie Moyer said. “We’re trying to instill that same commitment to our kids. It’s not easy, but what is easy in life?”
Most ballplayers with school-aged kids leave the family behind during spring training, often getting together during mid-winter and spring break periods.
Mariners catcher Dan Wilson and his wife, Annie, also have their entire family – two sons and two daughters – in Arizona for all of spring training. Annie, a former teachers, is home-schooling the kids here.
“It means everything to me to have them down here,” Dan Wilson said. “It gets very lonely. When they’re not here, you count the days until they come. It’s great to go home at the end of the day and have them there.”
Wilson admits that what works for his family and the Moyers may not work for others. Children, especially older ones who have friends and activities at home, may not adjust so well with a six-week relocation.
“As a parent, you’ve got to think about what’s best for your kids first,” Wilson said. “You’ve got to put your desires aside. Sometimes moving kids around can be hard on them.”
Even with a four-bedroom apartment, space is tight for the Moyers. They’re an active family of eight, with one baby just learning to crawl and another “that’s into everything,” Jamie Moyer said.
The Moyers’ two older boys sleep in one bedroom, two girls another, a baby in one bedroom and another baby in Jamie and Karen’s bedroom.
“We completely downsize when we’re here and we live simple,’ Karen Moyer said. “There are fewer clothes, fewer toys, there’s no yard to play in.”
The Moyers use their annual spring training move to clear the clutter that has accumulated from the previous year.
“It’s our spring cleaning,” Jamie Moyer said. “From last year to this year, the summer clothes that no longer fit them become either hand-me-downs or they’re out the door and we donate them. Then we come down here and we go to a Nike outlet and load up on shoes, socks, T-shirts, shorts, sweatshirts. It’s clothes shopping for spring and summer, and we usually go home with more than what we came down with.”
Their daily routine in Arizona isn’t much different from any other family with work, school and activities to juggle. It’s just that Jamie Moyer’s work takes place at a baseball park every day, and Karen spends considerable time with the nonprofit Moyer Foundation.
Jamie Moyer gets out of bed around 6 a.m. each day and drives to the Mariners’ spring training complex in Peoria. Karen and the kids are up around 7, and she drives the older ones to school, then fills the rest of her day with a workout, business with the foundation, errands and another shuttle to pick up the kids from school.
There may be soccer games in the afternoons and, like last week, a school science fair at night.
And there’s always homework, lots of it because the kids are fulfilling their obligation to schools in both Arizona and Seattle.
“That’s the commitment we’ve made to that school up there and we feel we have to live by that,” Jamie Moyer said. “We don’t want to take advantage of that school just because of my job. And coming down here to school, we don’t want to say ‘We’re not doing this, or we’re not doing that.’ We tell them our kids will be treated as a student in their classroom, and they should put them through what they need to put them through and we’ll figure out a way to get it done.”
Often that means three hours of homework a night for the older boys, Dillon and Hutton.
“The schools have been respectful to our wishes,” Jamie Moyer said. “But we feel we have to be respectful to what the schools ask as well.”
One reason the kids adapt so easily every year is because this has been their late-winter routine since they were born.
“It’s all they know,” Jamie Moyer said. “It all goes back to being a family. They very easily could be at home and I wouldn’t see them and they wouldn’t see me. Then it’s all put on Mom’s shoulders. That’s an option, but we don’t look at it as a viable option.”
It’s a tradeoff they all gladly make.
“The kids get to see their dad,” Karen Moyer said.
During the season, even when the Mariners play at home, Jamie Moyer’s time with his kids can be scarce. He’s often still asleep in the mornings when they leave for school and he already has gone to the ballpark when they get home.
“Once the season starts, I’m almost completely out of the picture,” he said. “I’m hearing things second and third hand, either from one of the kids through another kid or from Karen. It’s hard, but that’s this lifestyle. It’s our choice. We deal with it.”
Summers and weekends, when school is out, Dillon and Hutton often spend afternoons in the outfield at Safeco Field, getting grass stains on their knees as Jamie Moyer hits balls to them. They’ve done that a few times in Peoria, too, the past few weeks when the school schedule allowed. Friday, Dillon and Hutton were batboys while Jamie pitched in a minor league spring training game.
“I have a lot of memories of my dad and myself as a kid,” he said. “It reminds me how simple this game is and it allows me to keep things in perspective.”
Jamie Moyer, at age 42, is in the final year of his contract with the Mariners and, while he hasn’t hinted at retiring, the possibility is as likely now as ever.
For that reason, Karen Moyer had thought this would be a difficult spring training emotionally. She realizes that next winter the family easily could be staying home with Dad.
“I remember asking Leah Buhner if she missed it after Jay retired,” Karen Moyer said. “She said she always misses going to spring training.
“I thought we would be thinking about this as being one of the last ones. But Jamie is very enthused about this season. As long as he is healthy, he’ll pitch as long as he can. He feels good, he’s having a good spring and who knows?
“This is the unglamorous side of our life, but I love spring training. It’s an awesome time for the family to be together and that’s why we make the effort to do it every year.”
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