GLENDALE, Ariz. — Whether you're a hard-throwing pitcher firing a fastball high and tight, or a speedy baserunner taking a big lead off the bag, a baseball player's priority is to make his opponent as uncomfortable as possible.
That's why Troy Timney's position with the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers is an exception to that rule: the Brattleboro native is the team's visiting clubhouse manager, responsible for making the opposing team as comfortable as possible while playing at Dodger Stadium.
And Timney performs that job exceptionally well: he was recently named the 2024 Visiting Clubhouse Manager of the Year in a vote by the MLB Clubhouse Managers Association. "Troy earned this honor in his first season in the role," the Association posted on its Facebook page. "With 16 seasons of dedication to the Dodgers organization, Troy’s hard work and leadership continue to make an incredible impact."
"It's all voted on honestly by your peers, and it's basically based on your clubhouse presentation, what we've built there, everything that goes into it, from communication to preparation to detail, etc.," Timney said last month in a phone interview from the Dodgers' spring training and minor-league base. "It's a great honor to be thought of by your peers and I'm just in a really good position. I mean, this is an absolute dream job."
Timney said the job entails doing everything he can to be a good host for the visiting team, "really like a concierge service," he said. "We're there to serve the visiting team. And so what that entails is all the unpacking and packing of the equipment, managing the clubhouse, facilitating all the meals for the team, and being able to handle any individual or team requests throughout a series. So we really strive to create this welcoming dynamic and vibrant culture, where the team that is there feels really welcomed. That's our job. That's the mindset you have to have."
It's an extremely busy time of the year for Timney, who still serves as minor-league equipment manager for the Dodgers, getting the "volumes and volumes" of equipment in and starting the distribution process to the team's affiliates. He'll soon depart for L.A., where the Dodgers open their home schedule against the Detroit Tigers on March 27 (after opening the MLB regular season against the Cubs in Japan on March 18).
Despite winning their second championship in five years last fall, it's been a busy offseason for the Dodgers, highlighted by the additions of two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki. They also have three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani returning to the pitching rotation after a season in which he became the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single season.
To say that expectations are high for 2025 is an understatement.
"In sports, when the window of opportunity to win multiple championships presents itself, you need to capitalize," Timney said. "This organization is in a great position to do just that. We continue to add elite talent with plus makeup, draft and develop at a high level, and have the player depth to sustain a 162 game regular season and a deep run in October. We are led by an amazing collection of front office individuals starting with Stan Kasten, Andrew Friedman, and Brandon Gomes on down to our robust scouting and player development departments. We source, vet, and hire the very best people for our organization and I’m incredibly grateful to be a part of the fabric."
Timney knows a thing or two about winning championships. He's won them in some capacity at every level of baseball — as a catcher on the 1997 Brattleboro state title team; in college, with Division III Eastern Connecticut State University in 2002; as home clubhouse manager for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats of the double-A Eastern League in 2004; and now twice with the Dodgers (2020 and 2024).
"When I graduated college, I didn't have any interest in extending my playing career," Timney said. "I got my first opportunity to work in professional baseball in 2003 with the Trenton (N.J.) Thunder (at the time a double-A Yankees affiliate). That was an internship that I initially took, and then it led to the visiting clubhouse manager position there within the first week. That's kind of how the career journey started.
"And so the funny part about that opportunity was that I didn't have any idea. I knew I wanted to work in baseball, but I really didn't know what direction I wanted to go in. And then this position was offered to me, and I started learning a little bit more about it. For whatever reason, all those years of playing, I just never stopped and thought about the clubhouse, that there's actually a clubhouse in professional baseball where there's people taking care of all the equipment and doing all the laundry and so forth, whether it be at Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium or wherever. It just never occurred to me until that opportunity got presented to me. But it didn't take long before I realized this is what I'm meant to do."
Through some professional networking, in 2004, Timney joined the Toronto Blue Jays organization as home clubhouse manager for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, who won the Eastern League championship in their first season in Manchester, N.H.
The winter after that, he traveled to the baseball winter meetings in California and discovered that a position as assistant minor league equipment manager with the Texas Rangers was open. For the next four years, he worked for the Rangers at their minor league and spring training complex in Surprise, Arizona, where his mentor was a seasoned pro named Chris Guth.
"I handled all the clubhouse operations on the minor league side and was part of the supporting cast for (Guth), who was a veteran guy in the game. I was basically able to shadow him and learn from him for four years, primarily on the budget and the overall equipment end of things."
After four years with the Rangers, another opportunity presented itself: the Dodgers were in the midst of building a new minor league and spring training complex in Glendale, Arizona, moving from their longtime base in Vero Beach, Fla. Timney put his name in the hat to become their minor league equipment manager and was hired for the job in November, 2008.
"That was a big move, because they had a brand new complex, which was super exciting at the time. So I had a lot of involvement with the interior design and layout of the equipment room, and it was just a lot of special things that I was involved in, let alone the new position."
When the opportunity for a promotion to visiting clubhouse manager came along in January of 2024, he jumped on it.
"It was an opportunity that I had always set myself up for, but truthfully, you just never know if it's going to happen. It's very infrequently that an opportunity like this opens up because there's minimal turnover. It's just an extremely difficult job to get, so I was proud and excited for the opportunity. What I wanted to do was continue doing the minor league equipment, because I still enjoy the equipment side of things, and so it's basically a dual role. I manage the visiting clubhouse in L.A. during the season and also still continue with my minor league equipment responsibilities all throughout the year."
He called working as visiting clubhouse manager an "incredible experience. Every day, you're around the best in the game, the most elite athletes in the game, and you're the point person, you're the guy. That's just a motivator in itself. But you have to be extremely prepared and organized, and the expectations are high at that level. It's a very unique environment, but I absolutely love it."
Of course, it's not all fun and games: "There's a ton of sacrifices, late night unpacks, long hours, and not a lot of sleep during home stands."
As an example, Timney relates a sequence of events during last fall's National League Championship Series between the Dodgers and New York Mets, when the Mets traveled to L.A. for Game 6, with an off day in Los Angeles before trying to push the series to a seventh game. Except there was no "off day" for Timney and the visiting clubhouse staff.
"So (the Mets) landed in L.A. at 2 a.m. the night before and we (the clubhouse staff) received the equipment truck from the airport at 3:30 and then it takes us three hours to unpack that truck and bring all the equipment and travel bags from players, coaches and support staff down to the clubhouse. Then we have to do all the laundry, because they left New York dirty. Then we have to set up all the lockers, so everything comes out of the bags. All the lockers are set up. All the laundry is done. And basically you're putting this piece of the puzzle together. At 6:30 a.m. we finish, we get a little bit of rest. And then they had a workout that afternoon. So when they get done with their workout, you're doing all the laundry from the workout, and then maybe around nine or 10 that night you get back to bed. And then here we go, rolling into Game 6 the following night. And then, of course, the Dodgers win Game 6. So what are we doing? We're packing up the Mets, getting that equipment truck loaded back up to send them back to New York within, what, 48 hours? And you're trying to squeeze in a little bit of sleep. So you have to really be able to function at a high level."
Despite the hectic schedule, Timney, 46, said he gets back as often as possible to his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he resides with his wife, Heather, and sons Hudson, 9, Callum, 7, and Nolan, 5.
He said that he's been selected to work the clubhouse for the 2025 MLB All-Star Game in Atlanta, the fourth straight year he's gotten that call. It's another reward for a lot of hard work and commitment to a championship level of service.
"The best way to describe it is just, honestly, being prepared for anything. It could be a last-minute black car service for a player post-game or something like that. There's a wide variety of things we have to be prepared for, and we work really hard at doing our due diligence on the front end and knowing what maybe certain players like, so we have that available for them. Some of that is collaboration with the dieticians or nutritionists for the team coming in, or with the equipment manager who's coming in with the team, or the director of travel.
"But I think a lot of the job is just being extremely prepared and having really good resources and contacts, because a lot of stuff is spontaneous. There's not a ton of pre-planning that can be done because of the amount of travel and time zone changes and whatnot, so you just have to be able to react, in the moment, and be able to think on your feet and put out a good product."