Even clubhouses have neighborhoods

There are no Realtors, no escrow and no monthly mortgage, but tips are appreciated.

When it comes to real estate, lockers in major league clubhouses are no different from the outside world.

It’s location, location, location.

“That’s when you know you made it,” said Jason Giambi, who moved uptown when he joined the New York Yankees in 2002 and was given Paul O’Neill’s old locker. “They give you a big locker a star had before you, and you get an extra one next to it.”

Locker-room layout gets little fanfare, but it can have an effect on everything from a team’s chemistry to a superstar’s ego to a rookie’s learning curve. That leaves the clubhouse manager with much to consider when assigning lockers – including age, race, cultural background, even hobbies.

“Take a look at our place,” said San Diego Padres veteran closer Trevor Hoffman. “You’ve got Redneck Row over there. That’s where we have hunters like Ryno (Ryan Klesko). That’s where you’re going to find antlers and deer heads. You’ve got Pitchers Row over there. That’s where Jake (Peavy) and all of the starters hang out. And right here, this is Park Place row. This is where the big-money guys are.

“(Mike) Piazza raised everyone’s property value when he moved into this row.”

The most famous block of lockers in baseball might belong to San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds. He has a row to himself, complete with a vibrating lounge chair and TV set.

This isn’t necessarily considered an ego trip for Bonds. Simply, it’s a rite of passage for veterans.

“To me, you made it when you were with the stars,” Chicago Cubs manager and former major leaguer Dusty Baker said. “We had Reggie (Smith), Davey (Lopes), the Penguin (Ron Cey), (Steve) Yeager and (Steve) Garvey all lined up in one row (when he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers). We called that, ‘Big Boys Row.’ That was everybody’s goal – to make it to that row.”

In the Padres clubhouse, Hoffman has empty lockers on each side of him so he can spread out and get comfortable. Piazza has two lockers. So does 38-year-old Vinny Castilla and Klesko, 34. And so does the old man on the team, utility man Eric Young, who recently turned 39.

“When you get two lockers, you know you’ve arrived in this game,” Young said. “It’s a privilege. It’s like what they taught me when I was a young player: Time means everything in this game.”

Rank has its privileges

Every clubhouse layout has its quirks. In the visiting clubhouse in Arizona are two huge lockers reserved for the veteran stars. The Chicago Cubs’ Greg Maddux is placed here. So is Bonds. And Hoffman, the New York Mets’ Tom Glavine, the Colorado Rockies’ Todd Helton and the Houston Astros’ Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio.

“That was the strangest thing for me,” said Bob Doty, the visiting clubhouse attendant at the Diamondbacks’ Chase Field. Roger Clemens “joins the Astros, but I couldn’t put him there because Bagwell and Biggio were already there (last season).

“Oh, well, it beats the time that I put (Sammy) Sosa there. He kept asking why he was there. So I moved him back.”

Privileges for veterans – whether bigger lockers or empty lockers on each side – have been around baseball as long as Cracker Jack.

“I remember we only had two guys on our whole (St. Louis Cardinals) team that got their shoes shined each day,” Joe Garagiola recalled. “One was Stan Musial. The other was Solly Hemus.”

Musial was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969. But Hemus? He never made an All-Star team, let alone the Hall of Fame.

“Solly was smart enough,” Garagiola said, “to put his shoes each night in Musial’s locker.”

Clubhouse managers call shots

It’s the clubhouse managers, and seldom the baseball managers, who are responsible for assigning lockers. Clubhouse managers usually will ask veteran players upon joining a new team where they want to be located.

Ted Walsh, the Seattle Mariners clubhouse manager, gave a diagram to high-priced free agents Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson when they joined the team before the 2005 season. Beltre wanted to be close to former second baseman Bret Boone. Sexson opted for a corner spot.

If there are no requests by veterans, high-priced free agents or management, the clubhouse manager uses his discretion. There was a time years ago, Oakland A’s equipment manager Steve Vucinich said, when management didn’t want African-American players lockering next to one another.

Nowadays, it doesn’t matter whether clubhouses have the appearance of being segregated. In Oakland, nearly all the Latino players are situated in the front of the clubhouse, where they can congregate and talk to one another.

“We call it the Island,” said A’s third baseman Eric Chavez, whose locker is in the rear of the clubhouse, once occupied by Sal Bando. “Those guys always hang out together.”

Giants clubhouse manager Mike Murphy, who has been with the club since the move to San Francisco in 1958, said he has never had a manager or general manager make a locker request.

When free-agent closer Armando Benitez joined the team a year ago, Murphy placed him near the other Latino players. Free-agent outfielder Moises Alou, a clubhouse leader, was placed alongside several young players. The same with free-agent catcher Mike Matheny. Free-agent pitcher Matt Morris was situated where the media could easily talk to him after games.

“The only guy I was a little careful about where I put him was Matt Williams,” Murphy said. “I love Matty, but he would get so (angry) and throw stuff after losses. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Manager Buck Showalter of the Texas Rangers has been known to dictate locker assignments. Yet, Showalter said, he only will request locker assignments if he wants a particularly young player to be surrounded by a veteran.

“I think I’ve only done that once myself,” Padres manager Bruce Bochy said. “I wanted (Ken) Caminiti to cut down on his drinking, so I put him next to Wally Joyner (a devout Mormon). It didn’t work, but I thought it was worth a try.”