Pilot Pablo: Twins ace cruises around in ... sim fighter jet?

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PHOENIX -- If you were the ace starting pitcher of a Major League Baseball team, what do you think you’d do with your off-day in the middle of a road trip? Read a book? Lounge by the pool? Watch some movies? Play a round of golf?

Try flying a simulated F-16 fighter jet. That’s what Pablo López did on Monday.

Because López’s host dad from his time in the Minor Leagues had been in the Air Force and a pilot for United Airlines for more than three decades, López found a string of connections that allowed him to hop in a car and trek over to Luke Air Force Base, in the western extremities of the Phoenix metropolitan area, where he got a chance to fly a virtual jet.

Because apparently, that’s a thing that you can just … do if you know a person who knows a person in the Air Force.

“I guess so. I didn't ask too many questions,” López said. “I agreed to it and I went.”

López said he spent 20-30 minutes in the simulator, flying around the Phoenix area before taking a quick jaunt out to simulated Las Vegas and back. This wasn’t his first experience on a flight simulator, either. López said that in the past, he’d also piloted simulated flights on Boeing 777 and Airbus A320 jets.

It shouldn’t really come as a surprise that the clubhouse’s resident aviation nerd is López, who comes from a family of doctors and turned down a chance to go to medical school to pursue his baseball career. He wasn’t the only one last year, when noted plane geek Michael A. Taylor shared the clubhouse and would just read about aviation during team flights, López said.

López isn’t quite in deep enough to spend his spare time reading books about aviation or anything, but when he boards a plane and sees a lull, he’ll try to knock on the cockpit door to greet the pilots and ask them about the flight path and other such details, he said.

“They gave me those things with wings that you can put on your shirt,” López said. “I've gotten those before.”

Perhaps what’s next on López’s wish list is the chance to do a ride-along in one of those jets, which he’d certainly be open to. But he said he hasn’t necessarily thought about going for a pilot’s license himself -- and certainly not while he’s still an active player.

“I know people say it's scary how easy it is to get, but I haven't thought about it,” López said.