RSSA Story to Help You Survive The Last 10 Days Of Spring Training
Mar 22
Sports baseball, Spring Training Comments Off
Spring training has been in progress for about a month and most of us are getting a little sick of it. It’s thrilling for the first week, pretty exciting for the next two, tolerable for another week or so, and then it begins to feel interminable (from what I hear, it feels that way for the players, too). We’re all aching for the games that actually count to get started. In the office, on the phone, and over lunch we’ve covered all the standard story lines and given the obligatory rants.
Now that the weather up north is starting to warm and it’s getting really old seeing Kevin Cash and Ed Rogers on the field for the Red Sox, but we’re still ten days from opening day, maybe it’s time for some distraction. So I think I’ll reminisce and share my own personal spring training story.
Imagine back to the halcyon days of an era long gone by. Back when Jewel’s You Were Meant For Me and R. Kelly’s I Believe I Can Fly graced the airwaves. Booty Call and Private Parts were kings of the box office. And the greatest invention of our lifetimes, Tivo, was still nearly two years from being introduced to the public. It was March 1997.
Back in college, I played baseball for Wesleyan University in Connecticut. We would train indoors in January and February to prepare for the start of the season. New England in early March is rarely conducive to starting a baseball season so we always flew to Miami during the school’s two week spring break and played our first dozen games of the year down south. Now, I’m no big fan of Florida or Miami (I just can’t get into all the pink and turquoise), but it was always fun to hit the warm weather and play some ball on beautifully maintained fields. During those two weeks, we only had two, maybe three days off without games. Most of my teammates wanted to spend as many minutes of those as possible on South Beach ogling topless Brazilian girls, and any free evenings hitting the clubs on the strip to ogle scantily-clad spring-breaking American college girls. But somehow, during one of our free afternoons, my friend Adam and I managed to get they keys for one of our two team vans and we drove to Fort Lauderdale, spring training home of the Orioles, to watch a game between Baltimore and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
We got into the game for about five bucks apiece and walked, unfettered, right down to a chain link fence behind third base where we spent the bulk of the game leaning on the fence, not ten feet from the foul line. I’d never been so close to the action of a big league game in my life. Fans were calm and polite and seemed to genuinely enjoy just getting to watch the players showcase their incredible skills. Around the fourth inning, Cal Ripken Jr. pulled a soft grounder foul over towards where we were standing and it took a friendly hop right up to my hands, so I had myself a souvenir off the bat of one of the game’s greats. But, even better, as the game progressed and the starters were removed for reserves, several stars took time along the foul lines to sign autographs. Raul Mondesi and Mike Piazza, big Dodger stars of the mid-1990s, both came by and signed my ball in addition to items for dozens of other fans during the later innings. And at the end of the game, Iron Man Cal himself walked to the third base line to sign autographs. Needless to say, he drew quite a crowd. But, if I wasn’t before, I became a huge admirer of his that day when I watched him spend an entire hour after the game to sign an autograph for every last kid, middle-aged autograph hunter, and college student, including the ball I’d caught off his bat a couple hours earlier.
What I took away from that game, besides a nice autographed ball, was how generous they all were with their time, especially Ripken, at just another spring game in mid-March. And how easy it was to get close to the players. I hope spring training is still like that ten years later. I’d never seen a baseball environment so welcoming and easygoing, having grown up amongst the rabid fans of the Boston Red Sox. So, even though I’m completely sick of the meaningless games and I can barely stomach another conversation about the merits of backup catchers, if there are still parks in Florida and Arizona that offer the kind of experience that I got in 1997, where anyone can just walk up to the gate, spend less than twenty dollars for a ticket and a whole boatload of food, have that unique opportunity to be just a few feet from the action, and meet some of the best ballplayers in the world up close, then it’s worth it to suffer through another week and a half.
More Notes from the Cheap Seats
Cal Ripken Jr. was recently elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Class of 2007, along with Tony Gwynn. He was one of the closest ever to be elected unanimously, but fell a few votes shy. He is one of the clearest first-ballot Hall of Famers to come along in a long while. A true class act, he continues to devote time and money supporting the game he played brilliantly for over twenty years. All I want to know is, who didn’t vote for him?
Raul Mondesi retired after 2005 with 13 years of big league experience. He hit 271 home runs and, in his heyday, had a run of 3 consecutive 30 homer seasons. In two of those, he was a member of the elite 30/30 club, with at least 30 homers and 30 stolen bases. He had an up and down reputation as someone with a bit of an attitude, but in his prime, he could mash the ball and had one of the strongest arms from the outfield in the majors.
Mike Piazza, at 38 years old, is still going strong. He is moving to the American League for the first time in his career and will attempt to be the full-time DH for the Oakland Athletics. Though he’s battled injuries for the past few years, he will go down as the best power hitting catcher in the history of the game. He has 8 seasons to his credit with at least 30 home runs and was one of the biggest stars in the game for over a decade with the Dodgers and Mets. And lest people forget, his ascension is a phenomenal story, having been drafted by the Dodgers only as a favor to his godfather (who happened to be Tommy Lasorda) in the 61st round of the 1988 draft (do they even have 61 rounds anymore?). An incredible long shot to even reach the majors, with 419 home runs and just shy of 1,300 RBIs to date, he has made himself a surefire first ballot Hall of Famer.
