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Category Archives: Spring Training

Tales from Spring Training both as a fan and as a pro. Autograph hounding, sunburn, parking in people’s lawns, meeting ‘old timers,’ seeing young prospects, tales from the clubhouses and press boxes of Florida’s Grapefruit League and Tampa’s Legends Field.

March 18-19-20: Rain=Baseball Drought

Monday, March 26, 2001

Three days in a row of dissatisfaction with baseball followed. First, on Sunday March 18 the Yankees played the Red Sox in Fort Myers, a game I could not get tickets to no matter how I tried. Last year’s game I tried to buy phone, and they told me the Yankee game was the one […]

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March 17: Fencing (Yanks at Blue Jays)

Monday, March 26, 2001

After seeing the Braves in Disney, we drove to a little Cuban restaurant we knew of in Kissimmee, stuffed ourselves with black beans, rice, shredded beef, and the like, and then drove to the Tampa area. We were staying in my parents’ retirement house in Crystal Beach, like we did last year. They still aren’t […]

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March 16: Old Friends Yankees at Braves

Monday, March 26, 2001

Green as I may be in the world of baseball, I’m not a rookie anymore. This is my second trip to spring training, so I knew a little of what to expect. And even though I had never been to see the Atlanta Braves play before, I found myself on familiar ground. The Disney Wide […]

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March 26: Spring Training 2001

Monday, March 26, 2001

One of the great things about being a baseball writer is that you never lack for a metaphor, a symbolic hook, or an irony. I just sat down at my computer, having gotten off an airplane from Florida an hour ago, and what do I see outside my window here in Boston? Yes, my friends, […]

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March 22: Right Place, Right Time (Blue Jays at Yankees)

Sunday, March 26, 2000

Another day, another trip to Legends Field, right? Wrong. Because this time the weather finally turned clear! It was still chilly for Florida, but the sun was bright and the breeze snappy as we pulled into the parking lot a good three hours before game time. Surely there was no excuse for the Yankees to […]

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Mar 17 2000: Spring Training Day Five – Day Without Baseball #2

Friday, March 17, 2000

So, as mentioned above, we couldn’t get Braves tickets. And as with the Red Sox game we missd,the Yanks creamed ’em (this time like 24 to 7 or something). Apparently, the Braves had a split squad day, and sent all their rookies to Legends Field. Steinbrenner reportedly went “ballistic” over the dis, but hey, the […]

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Mar 16 2000: Spring Training Day Four – Sarasota

Thursday, March 16, 2000

After the game in Clearwater, we dropped Dad off at the airport and he went back to New Jersey (he’d already been on vacation when we met him, playing golf in Orlando, so we had to let him get back to work). That evening we were supposed to pick up corwin (my significant other) and […]

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Mar 15 2000: Spring Training Day Three – Clearwater

Wednesday, March 15, 2000

Among the games we did NOT see in our week in Florida were the Red Sox game in Fort Myers and the Braves game at Legends Field. Despite my best and earliest efforts, both games were sold out before I could get tickets. So technically, Day Three of our vacation was a Day Without Baseball, […]

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Mar 14 2000: Spring Training Day Two – Legends Field

Tuesday, March 14, 2000

On March 7th we got up early with the intention of getting to Legends Field in time to see morning batting practice. We really didn’t know what to expect, only that we’d heard that practice started 3 hours prior to games. So we pulled our rental car on the gargantuan parking field adjacent to Raymond […]

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Mar 14 2000: Spring Training Day Six – Dunedin

Tuesday, March 14, 2000

Dunedin’s stadium (Grant Field) was the closest to the house of all the places we went. It was about seven miles, actually, so even though we went early to the game to see BP and fielding practice, we didn’t have to leave very early. We did our best to eat up the food in the […]

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