'I never had a problem with work': Tigers' Goodrum puts self-built home gym to good use

Detroit – When Tigers shortstop Niko Goodrum first scouted what would become his home outside of Atlanta, one of the first things that caught his eye was a spacious garage and, a few yards behind it and down a hill, a large pole barn.

Immediately, he started envisioning a gym and a baseball workout space. Never could he imagine, though, how valuable that space would be a couple of years later as the coronavirus pandemic has put the country in veritable lockdown.

“I wasn’t planning for something like this,” Goodrum said in a phone conversation from his home on Thursday. “I was just investing in my career.”

If you go on his Twitter page, you will see just a small part of the investment – he’s hitting balls off a tee into a batting net. In the background you can see two massive tires that he uses to build core strength. The baseball garage is approximately 15 feet wide and 50 feet long, with a turf floor. His gym equipment would make L.A. Fitness envious.

“If you could’ve seen where it came from and how it came together,” Goodrum said. “It was fun doing it. Me, my dad and my brother did everything together. We had some people come in to knock a wall down, but we did everything else together – laying the turf, putting the equipment together, hanging stuff, everything.”

More: 'Time to step up': Tigers shortstop Niko Goodrum knows it's next-level time

Goodrum estimates the project cost about $12,000. It features a sled, power racks, treadmills, stationary bikes – as he said, “Everything I need.”

 “When I bought the house, this was a woodshop – the guy who lived here did woodwork,” Goodrum said. “When I got it, it was just an open garage with another garage below it. I had a vision and it came to life.”

He does hitting drills off the tee, though there is no pitching machine or batting cage. His brother will hit him ground balls and he will make throws into the net. If not for the quarantine and social distancing, he’d be going out to a field to take live swings off 52-year-old Don Lemon, a Detroit native who pitched in the Braves and Marlins systems, as well as in Japan and Mexico.

“We can’t do that now, but you just make the best of it,” Goodrum said. “When it’s time to go, we’ll be ready. We’ll get back into the swing of it, the live pitching. Maybe a week, two weeks and we’ll be ready.”

As long, he said, as you keep your body in shape.

“When we left, I know my teammates were all on the same page,” he said. “We said we were going to stay in shape and be ready to go. When they give the word, we are going to be ready that day. You can get back into baseball shape, game shape, pretty quickly, if you keep your body in shape.

“You don’t want to get hurt. So keep your body in shape, keep moving, keep running. If you do that, then when it’s time to come back you won’t get hurt.”

More: If baseball comes back with expanded rosters, what will Tigers look like?

Goodrum does this quarantine thing better than most. He’s got plenty of food, video games, movies. He’s got his home gym and baseball workshop. He’s got family there for company. No cabin fever for him. Plus, as bad as the pollen levels are in Georgia these days, he’s better off indoors.

“We shouldn’t be looking at this as time off, though,” he said. “We’re supposed to be playing right now. We’re not on vacation, you know? Even though we’re not getting ready to play a game every day, in whatever city, you should still do some kind of work, in my opinion.

“You can’t just be sitting around relaxing and they try to fire it back up. That’s when you get hurt.”

Goodrum missed a couple of weeks of spring training with what the Tigers called groin tightness. It wasn’t that exactly. He aggravated a nerve that runs through the quad/groin area. He had just returned to game action when the shutdown hit.

“It’s good,” he said. “I’m doing some things for it, strength, mobility – just getting out and running."

Goodrum made $675,500 last season and is still not eligible for arbitration. Spending $12,000 on a home gym might seem extravagant – until you hear him talk about it.

“I don’t look at myself as being all that,” he said. “I guess I just figured every athlete would do that. It’s a career investment. This is how I make my money. This is where I go to work. For some it’s tough having a gym at their house. It’s easy to get lazy and not use it.

“For me, I never had a problem with work.”

Twitter @cmccosky