Spring Training

I'm currently watching a spring training game on MLB Network. If MLB Network had existed when I was growing up I may have NEVER left my bedroom for long periods of time. I think they do an amazing job there and their programming is great for a baseball junkie like myself. Outside of any show where the term "analytics" is used or any reference to "the Shredder" comes up, I would lock in the channel and "rip the know off". Yes kids, there were knobs on televisions at one time. 

But today's topic is spring training.

When I was growing up nearly all baseball teams trained in Florida. Now, there were only 24 teams at the time, but the vast majority of teams were based in the Sunshine State. I always knew that my team, the New York Mets, were going to be playing their home games in St. Petersburg. They shared their stadium and complex with the St. Louis Cardinals at that time.

During the month of March there was not much heard from Florida. I would check the daily boxscore in the New York Daily News, which looked like a full roster list on some days, given how many players made it into the game that day.  Once a week or so we would get the games on AM radio (Some of you youngsters, born post-1985, may not know what AM radio is. Google it. Or you could listen the song by Everclear of the same name) and hear the names of the players who would make the trip north to start the season.  On a rare Saturday there would be an actual telecast from Florida on WOR Channel 9. Oh happy day! Those were special Saturdays.

Spring training games always seemed to have a recreational feel to them.  Game programs cost 50 cents and would double as a portable fan on warmer days.  Coaches seated NEXT to the dugout, not in it.  Autographs being signed by players during the game.  Pitchers jogging on the warning track DURING the game. Fans wearing enough tanning lotion to make them resemble Butterball turkeys fresh from the oven and ready for cranberry sauce with  stuffing on the side. Players with numbers on their backs higher than 80.(Something you see a lot more of these days). Sometimes two players in the dugout wearing the SAME number.  And there always seemed to be that one vendor who could be heard throughout the park, usually selling cold beer.

I didn't attend my first spring game until 1980.  It was in Bradenton, at the spring home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. My grandmother lived about a half mile away from what was then known as McKechnie Field so I simply left my car at her place and walked there.  I remember during our yearly vacations from Connecticut in the '70s passing the park and hoping that I might see a game played there someday. Spring break for me at that time happened after teams had broken camp and the regular season had begun. And now that wish was going to come true. The stadium is right on 9th street. So close to the street that when you drive past it during a game you need to to be leery of the occasional foul ball struck over the 3rd base stands as it could cause a traffic hazard.

When I moved to Florida in the early '80s to attend college I would get hold of the spring training schedule when it was released which was much later than it is today. I would adjust my work schedule to allow me to catch a couple of games a week during the month of March. I topped myself once in the fact that I saw able to see two games on the same day in two different cities- Bradenton and St. Petersburg. Ah, the beauty of spring training.

The Baltimore Orioles currently play their spring home games at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota. Prior to that the Cincinnati Reds called this their spring home before moving out to Arizona. This is only important to me because during the late '80s I played adult league softball on that very site when it was known as the Ed Smith softball complex. I must have the ghosts of two or three stellar defensive plays haunting that stadium to this day.

Spring training in Arizona is very popular now, as it still is in Florida.  About half of all major league teams train in Arizona.  Complexes are much more sophisticated these days. Some teams even share complexes. Practice fields are located in close proximity to the stadium.  Unlike the Pirates, where their Pirate City complex is on the far east side of Bradenton and not near the stadium.  Game tickets cost a lot more now than they did years ago.  The players are both friendlier AND more arrogant than they used to be. But most things about spring training remain the same.  The ball is still the same size.  The bases are still 90 feet apart.  It still takes 9 innings to decide a winner, although you have an occasional tie. It's still 3 strikes and you're out.  60 feet 6 inches from home plate to the pitcher's mound and some games are still broadcast on AM radio (see paragraph 3).

Spring training reminds us that we somehow made it through yet another winter, hope for our teams spring eternal, and that we are at the dawning of yet another spring and summer of this great game. It may actually be more important this season. In 2020 a cardboard cutout of myself saw roughly 30 Mets games at Citi Field. This was because of something we all anticipated- a pandemic. In 2021 I saw 10 live games in 5  different ballparks. In the off-season we endured a 99-day lockout which will delay the opening of the season by a week. But here we are. Every team is tied for first place. Every team is also tied for last place. 

Rules changes, new faces on new teams. A new nickname for one team. But the game is back and baseball fanatics such as yours truly are in high anticipation of what lies ahead. 

But what's the BEST thing about spring training?

It makes me feel like a 10-year old.  And when one is in their 50s, (or now 60s), that's a cool feeling.

I'm just sayin'.