FanPost

A Grapefruit League Experience


Now that we have little to talk about for the next, um, whatever weeks or months, I thought maybe I'd write something up about my trip to spring training in Florida a couple weeks ago. I had two options that worked for games, the time I went and this coming weekend, so praise the Lord I chose the earlier dates!!!

I went to Brewers spring training in the vaunted Cactus League for the first time in 2017 and had an incredible time. The atmosphere at spring training is just so relaxed. The fan camraderie is great, the access to players and views of the action are far better and different than during the regular season. It's a great experience for anyone who loves baseball.

This year, my Dad will be turning 70. He has bad ankles and bad shoulders, but a lot of energy. I took him to Cooperstown a few years ago when he retired and had a great time, and decided that as a die hard baseball fan he should experience spring training at least once.

He is a big fan of the Braves, for over 60 years now. He grew up in northern Iowa before the Twins were around, and listened to the Milwaukee Braves on the radio in their glory years. He has grown to really enjoy the Brewers, but the Braves have always been his team. This year the Braves moved to SW Florida from Orlando. My wife's family has a shared condo in far SW Florida. Along with free lodging, flights to Florida tend to be much cheaper than flights to Arizona. I decided it was time to get my dad down there.

The Braves, Rays, Red Sox and Twins all play within the Fort Myers/Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte area. Not too much farther north is Sarasota, Bradenton, Tampa and Clearwater, with more teams. Like Phoenix, you can see your team a lot in a few days down there and experience different stadiums.

We went to three games and visited two other current or former spring training stadiums

The first game was Braves at Rays. The Rays play at Charlotte Sports Park, former spring training home of the Rangers. It's the year round home of the Florida State League Charlotte Stone Crabs. We attended a night game here, and it was just 50ish degrees, football weather in Florida! My Dad and I had the most fun here, though with the size of the park and the less than engaged crowd, it really felt more like a Timber Rattlers game than an MLB game.

The crowd was probably 2/3 Braves fans. The stadium has a nice design with a boardwalk around the outfield, and concessions and restrooms even out in center field. We had GIANT fish and philly cheese steak sandwiches, with prices definitely a bit better than regular season MLB. The Rays had a pretty laid back atmosphere with mascots Raymond and DJ Kitty, and some on field dizzy bat races and stuff like that. There were some nice ponds just beyond the left and center field walls, and one Braves minor leaguer even hit a home run into the pond.

Our second game was the Braves at the Red Sox. The Red Sox play at nine year old jewel Jet Blue Park. As one can imagine, the Red Sox fan base travels, and the facilities and atmosphere are a far cry from those of the Rays. The park is located just north of the Fort Myers airport. Outside on the 3rd base side is a kind of farmers market/carnival with food tents, bands, seating areas, and more. It really gave one the feeling of walking into the state fair. All around the stadium are photos and monuments celebrating the Red Sox and their history. This includes a Ted Williams statue, giant retired numbers, a full size replica of a JetBlue plane tail, a giant lego David Ortiz, and more. Inside, the stands are modern and sleek around the infield, but the outfield is a mostly complete replica of Fenway park, giving the spring training park it's "Fenway South" nickname. It has a full size Green Monster with seats on top, a manual left field scoreboard which had to be changed between innings by a couple people running out with a step ladder, and all the weird angles and lines of the Fenway outfield. Despite all the controversy of the Red Sox offseason, the place was virtually full, with only a handful of Braves fans. Unlike the other stadiums, once the game started, the place was crowded enough that we were pretty much stuck in our seats. The crowd was rather reserved, with far less music and minor league antics than the Rays had. A bit too sedate, but a beautiful park on a lovely afternoon.

Our final major league stop was the Braves park itself for a night game against the Phillies. This year, the Braves moved to their own facility, CoolToday Park, in the unincorporated area of North Port near Venice. Not surprisingly, it is a shiny, impressive new place. It has massive monuments and photos celebrating old time Braves stars like Aaron, Mathews and Spahn, along with Atlanta heroes like Dale Murphy, Greg Maddux and Chipper Jones. Access to side fields and to the players in general was quite limited, nothing like what I experienced at Maryvale. The stadium of course has a fancy, massive new scoreboard, though it was experiencing some problems as this was only about the fourth game at the new facility. The lights were also an issue, noticeably dim thanks to an apparent computer control issue. The announcer was a bit obnoxious, constantly referring to "our Braves" and imploring the fans to practice "Southern hospitality" and stuff like that. The insanely annoying Tomahawk Chop only showed up once. Like the Rays, you can walk all around the outfield. The Braves do let fans in a full two hours before so it gave us lots of time to explore and watch batting practice. The Phillies hit a ton of homers out where fans could catch them, and players tossed some balls up in the crowd. Again, food was served in massive proportions for relatively good prices as I had a Long John Silver's style fish combo in a fancy box. Most surprising about this game were the MASSIVE amount of Phillies fans. I had no idea the Phillies fan base was like this. It reminded me of a Cubs game at Miller Park. They were almost all really old, but they did a bit of booing and trash talking. Few of the starters and stars played in this game, though most had played for both teams in the Red Sox/Braves game.

My Dad and I also visited two other stadiums. Hammond Stadium, home of the Twins and Fort Myers FSL team, is just 3-4 miles from the Red Sox park. It's a slightly older (by current standards) but beautiful and impressive park. There was no game, but we visited the small team store, checked out the beautiful water fountains, and walked across the parking lot to watch a bit of the college women's softball tourney that was happening there. (Sadly, some of the only games those players would get to play this year)

We also stopped in at a junior college game at City of Palms Park in downtown Fort Myers, former home of the Red Sox. The BoSox played there from 1993-2011. It's a large park with a beautiful outfield view of palm trees. Since the Red Sox left, it has been the home to Florida Southwestern State College baseball. The Buccaneers were playing powerful Miami Dade College that day. There were only maybe 35 people in the 10,000 plus seats, but they had an enthusiastic PA announcer, concession stand including beer, and the Miami Dade players, mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican, were chanting and cheering and having a great time. It was a relaxed, fun atmosphere, and though we just watched a couple innings one of the highlights of our trip. The stadium still looks great from a distance, but maintenance has been fairly minimal and many seats are falling apart. Aside from one restroom and concession stand, the rest is just kind of abandoned with leaves and trash blowing through. Apparently the City of Fort Myers owns the field, and it is also used for some youth and amateur baseball, but is a major money loser for the city. They are talking of tearing down the stadium soon for development. It's in a rather run down section of Fort Myers, so it's kind of hard for me to see big development soon, but the stadium's days are definitely numbered. As one who loves baseball history, it was cool to check it out.

Overall, it was an incredible trip. We went on a gator fan boat ride, saw burrowing owns and pelicans which delighted my bird watcher Dad, visited an orange grove, had some great ribs and seafood, and my Dad saw Florida for the first time. I am especially happy I got to watch some baseball live as I am quite depressed about the coming weeks or months. I'd recommend going to spring training, even if it's to Florida. I know this is really, really long, but we have nothing else to talk about, so FTC, AATC, and lets talk about our favorite players of the past, or Broxton.