Year in and year out, the one thing you notice with Spring Training games is the stars rarely travel.  That goes double for when there are split squad games.  The bus travel during Spring Training is not ideal, and you really want to keep your best players both happy and healthy going into the season.

That is why I took a step back the other day when I saw Yoenis Cespedes traveled about an hour by bus with the Mets to Jupiter to play the Marlins in a split squad game.

Now, this wasn’t some interesting strategy that allowed Cespedes to get a look at some of the Marlins pitchers for the 2017 season.  It wasn’t even an opportunity for him to help find a spot for Tim Tebow in the Mets lineup at First Data Field.  No, it was for personal reasons for Cespedes that he made this rare trip:

Cespedes asked to play the road game in Jupiter because his son has a game in West Palm Beach at 4 that he wants to make.

— Mike Puma (@NYPost_Mets) March 27, 2017

In many ways, Cespedes has become almost a cartoon character with the Mets.  He’s a guy that is unstoppable at video game levels when he’s hot.  He’s the guy that had a car show at Spring Training last year.  He gave the keys to one of those expensive cars so someone could purchase the right waffle iron for him because as we know the biggest star on the Mets also makes breakfast for everyone.  He bought a farm, and he bought a pig at a State Fair.  He even rode horses one day at Spring Training with Noah Syndergaard.  To top it all off, he randomly decided to become the Lion King last year because why not?

Through it all, Cespedes has shown himself to be one unique individual, and that is why the fans love him.

Under all of that though, Cespedes is just a dad doing all he can do to make sure he can go watch his son’s baseball game.  Certainly, that is something all dads can appreciate.  It is certainly a trait we can all admire.  It is another reason that we can all root for Cespedes.