For Matt Kemp, the season doesn't start on Opening Day

For Matt Kemp, the season doesn’t start on Opening Day

Feb. 9, 2012 4:09 PM PT

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A lot of fans don’t realize that, for players, the season starts Jan. 1. As soon as the holidays pass, the major leaguers’ preseason conditioning begins in earnest.

Check out some exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of Dodger Matt Kemp’s off-season drills. The three short Web videos take him through a day of winter workouts, starting with him waking in the morning, groggily putting in his contacts, then heading out to a stadium to run stairs, lift weights and take some turns in the batting cage.

Kemp also discusses his motivation and expectations for the season.

The quick-paced clips -– basically the same material cut to three different lengths -- are the first of a series of videos the MLB has done on various stars, including Curtis Granderson and Jose Bautista.

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-- Chris Erskine

Dodgers Now

Chris Erskine

Chris Erskine is a nationally known humor columnist and editor who retired from the Los Angeles Times in 2020. Previously he wrote for the Sports, Travel and Saturday sections and edited with the paper’s features staff. As an editor, he has been a part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams at The Times (for his graphics work on the Northridge quake and the North Hollywood bank robbery). He is best known to readers for his weekly humor pieces on life in suburban Los Angeles. His latest book, “Daditude,” released in 2018, is a collection of his favorite Times columns on fatherhood. He has written two other books, “Man of the House” and “Surviving Suburbia,” which reached the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. The Chicago native has also worked for papers in New Orleans and Miami.

For Matt Kemp, the season doesn’t start on Opening Day

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