What I don't understand is how players' personal effects (luggage, golf clubs, kids' bicycles, the occasional kayak, etc.) are sometimes loaded on the truck, too. Why don't the players bring them or ship them down there themselves instead of paying to send them Philadelphia first? Why the "middle man"?
One year I was down there toward the end of the penultimate week of spring training and I saw an auto transport truck being loaded with players' cars for the trip north.