Spring Training Report #1

As this is my honeymoon and my attentions are naturally driven in multiple directions, you’ll have to forgive my less than timely addition to the baseball information. I have to admit that while JC would have spent just about every day at the baseball park, I have been distracted by many other things – including a good chunk of sitting on my ass watching the birds. In fact, until today, the only baseball-oriented activity I’ve taken part in was talking to the various baseball fans I ran into about their respective teams which included the Orioles, the Twins, the Phillies, the Red Sox

Of course, the whole reason PLANNED to come down here in March was so that we could work some baseball into the mix. So of course you knew it had to come up the schedule eventually. We had left the possible attendance of the Monday night Red Sox game as a “gameday decision” and once we saw the traffic backup going in the direction of the Lee County Sports Complex? yeah, we decided to go for a day game. Silly me thought I’d be able to find somewhere on Ft Myers TV a place that carried Spring Training games.. I was wrong.

(As it turns out, I saw from the score that that was likely a very good decision! Especially as our replacement plans included a fantastic seafood dinner off Ft Myers beach with a view of the marina & the pelicans.)

So today we ventured out to Hammond Stadium, knowing that the team had an away game so the place would be mostly empty and be a good time to acquaint ourselves with the park, the seating, and maybe even see some of the players who stayed behind. That made for a great couple of hours. We got to see Justin Morneau, Drew Butera, Denard Span and a bunch of other guys that I didn’t really recognize but a couple looked familiar.

We also checked out the field and planned out what seats we would like to be able to get.. tried to buy tix at the window but they didn’t have what we wanted so we’ll have to hit the ticket brokers in the parking lot when we get there on Thursday. We decided we’re going to go to the Rays game. Of course, it’s Senior Day that game so… that could make things interesting. Not to mention what it could do to the parking & traffic situation.

While we were hanging out, we started a convo with an older guy who was wearing “official-looking” Twins paraphanalia so I thought he worked for the team. Turns out it was Twins minor league catcher, Danny Lehmann’s dad! We were able to say hi briefly when Danny came out of the training room to meet up with pops. Reportedly there was going to be a “B” game going on later but we hung out for awhile and left when there was not visible activity for set up. Besides, I figured it was time to head out when I started to get distracted by the birds again..

We’ll have more to share on Thursday! (and just maybe something before that)