Golf cart entrances have quietly evolved into their own subgenre of in-game entertainment, complete with fan rankings
MINNEAPOLIS With several teams reviving or expanding the once-nostalgic tradition of shuttling relief pitchers from the bullpen to the mound via decorated golf cart, a dedicated corner of baseball fandom has emerged specifically to catalog, rank, and debate which relievers bring the most personality, energy, and general showmanship to what is, at its core, a fairly short ride across the outfield grass.
“There’s a real skill to a good cart entrance,” said self-described bullpen cart enthusiast Desmond Farro, who maintains an informal, admittedly niche ranking system tracking relief pitchers’ cart-riding presence across the league. “Some guys just sit there, arms crossed, staring straight ahead, treating it like a commute. Other guys lean into it completely, waving to the crowd, standing up slightly, really performing the moment. That second category, that’s who I’m here for.”
A Tradition Making an Unexpected Comeback
The bullpen cart, a fixture of baseball in earlier decades before largely falling out of favor as most teams transitioned to relievers jogging in from the bullpen, has seen a modest but genuine revival in recent seasons, with several franchises reintroducing decorated carts, often themed around team branding or local culture, as a deliberate nod to nostalgia and in-game entertainment value. Team marketing departments say the choice reflects a broader effort to inject more personality and spectacle into moments of the game that might otherwise pass with minimal fan engagement.
“A pitching change is normally a pretty dead moment for crowd energy,” said one team marketing staffer involved in reintroducing a bullpen cart this season. “The cart gives us something to build a little moment around. It’s silly, it’s nostalgic, and honestly, fans have responded to it far more enthusiastically than we initially expected. Some of our relievers have genuinely leaned into the bit in ways that have become fan favorites independent of their actual pitching performance.”
The Ranking System, Explained
Farro’s informal ranking criteria reportedly include entrance energy, in-cart showmanship, crowd engagement during the ride, and what he calls “dismount quality,” the manner in which a reliever exits the cart upon arrival at the mound. “A clean, confident dismount sets the tone for the outing,” he said, with what appeared to be genuine seriousness. “I’ve seen relievers fumble the exit and it just deflates the whole entrance. The best guys have this in their whole rhythm down. It’s a small thing, but once you start noticing it, you can’t stop noticing it.”
Players, Mostly Good-Humored About the Attention
Relief pitchers themselves have offered a range of reactions to the sudden scrutiny of their cart-riding style, with some embracing the attention as a fun, low-stakes bit of personality expression and others professing genuine bewilderment that their golf cart posture has become a subject of fan analysis. Team staff say most players ultimately find the trend amusing rather than bothersome, treating it as a harmless bit of fun attached to an otherwise unremarkable few seconds of in-game downtime.
A Niche That’s Found Real Community
Farro’s ranking project has attracted a modest but devoted online following, with fellow enthusiasts submitting their own cart entrance footage and debating rankings with a seriousness that Farro himself acknowledges is, on its face, fairly absurd given the stakes involved. “I know this is a small, strange corner of baseball fandom,” he said. “But baseball’s full of small, strange corners like this. That’s part of what makes the sport fun to follow at this level of detail. Somebody has to care about the golf cart guy. Turns out that somebody is me, and a surprising number of people who’ve found my rankings and apparently agree these details matter.”
A Small Cottage Industry, Forming Around a Golf Cart
The trend has begun generating its own minor merchandise ecosystem, with at least one online shop offering novelty items celebrating specific relievers’ most memorable cart entrances, and a handful of fans producing highlight compilation videos dedicated entirely to entrance footage, set to music, edited with the same care typically reserved for actual game-winning plays. “I’ve made three separate compilation videos this season,” Farro admitted. “None of them feature a single pitch thrown. All of them are just golf cart rides. I recognize how that sounds. I’ve made peace with how that sounds.”
Team marketing staff say they’ve noticed the fan-generated content and, in at least one case, have begun subtly encouraging relievers with strong cart presence to lean further into the bit, recognizing a genuine, low-cost fan engagement opportunity when they see one. “If a guy’s good at this, we’re not going to discourage it,” the marketing staffer said. “It costs us nothing, and it gives fans something fun to look forward to during a pitching change. Everybody wins, including, I assume, the reliever himself, who gets a little extra spotlight before he’s even thrown a pitch.”
Whether the bullpen cart trend continues expanding across the league or eventually settles into a smaller, more selective revival remains to be seen, though early fan response suggests genuine appetite for more of it, not less. Farro, for his part, says he’ll keep his rankings updated regardless of how many teams ultimately adopt the tradition. “Even if it’s just a handful of teams doing this,” he said, “that’s still plenty of material. I’m not running out of cart footage to study anytime soon, and honestly, I wouldn’t want to. This might be the purest, silliest, most enjoyable thing I follow in this entire sport.” Further coverage of baseball’s most delightfully unnecessary tracking project continues at bohiney.com.
SOURCE: https://prat.UK/