Smile! A behind-the-scenes look at Angels Photo Day

TEMPE, Ariz. -- There are certain rites of spring for baseball players and the coaching staff every year.

There are the annual physicals on the report date, the first team meeting ahead of the first official workout and the long-awaited first official full workout. But there’s also the annual Photo Day, which is both revered by some players and loathed by others.

The Angels held theirs bright and early at 6 a.m. on Thursday and they let me participate in it to get a sense for what the players and staff go through with several photo and video stations set up at the club’s Spring Training facility.

It’s a way for Major League Baseball and other outlets to get headshots of players, promotional photos and videos and material for the big screen at Angel Stadium during the regular season. The Angels have 73 players in camp this spring and a new coaching staff under manager Kurt Suzuki, so it was a long process that took more than two and a half hours before workouts began on Thursday.

But the Angels do an impressive job of streamlining it to make it as easy as possible on the players who go from station to station in roughly 45-60 minutes.

“The way I look at it now is that there are a lot of other people here a lot earlier than we are putting a lot of work in and making sure everything goes smoothly,” Suzuki said. “I think those guys deserve a lot of credit for the amount of work they put in to make us look good.”

The first stop is an easy one. It’s just the official headshots from Major League Baseball for the players and staff as well as some staged shots with gloves for pitchers and baseball bats for hitters in a converted video room.

From there, it’s into a hallway with photographers from outlets such as the Associated Press and Getty Images. As an AP photographer took some photos of me striking a pose, catcher Travis d’Arnaud couldn’t help but heckle me. The 13-year veteran said he likes to have fun during the process to keep things loose.

“It’s entertaining,” d’Arnaud said. “I try to mess around with the photographers a little. So then they get pictures of me smiling a little more naturally.”

The next stage of photo day is outdoors with players getting their photos taken with the sun slowly rising above the butte just east of the club’s former Minor League complex. I made sure to stop by the Topps station for a quick photo because I love opening packs with my nephew, Wes.

One of the more fun stations is hosted by MLB Social where players are peppered with questions like naming all three Jonas brothers, their favorite catch partner and how far they could kick a field goal. I overheard Mike Trout say he could make a field goal from 40 yards, so I made sure to say I could hit one from at least 41 yards just to outdo the three-time American League MVP. Trout laughed and then admitted that even 40 yards might be a stretch for him.

The banter is part of the photo day experience with players often chirping at each other and having fun but also understanding they have to take parts of it seriously because there’s no going back once those photos and videos are taken.

“You get to kind of show your personality a little bit,” reliever Ben Joyce said. “But it’s also one of those things where your family's going to want to see all of it and all that. So you’re trying to put on the best face for it.”

The last stage of photo day is hosted in the club’s new player development complex that debuted last year and features all sorts of technology. There are full 360-degree videos taken of the players and green screens to shoot the content used on the videoboard during the season.

Christian Moore, going through the second media day of his career, couldn’t help but marvel as Joyce went through it as his final step of Photo Day. Joyce said it was his favorite part and he is excited to see how the final product turns out.

“That video room is pretty cool,” Joyce said. “Like the screen is behind you and you can kind of see yourself going through it. It's pretty interesting. And it's crazy how technologically advanced all that stuff is. I don't know anything about it, but it’s all just really cool. It’s a fun experience.”