Well it’s finally here, there’s snow on the ground still and I can’t leave the house without making sure I’m covered from head to toe, but baseball is finally here, baseball! Yes, Opening Day is still a ways away, but the players have made their way to Florida or Arizona and Spring Training is in full swing and I couldn’t be happier. As much as I love the “Hot Stove League” seeing who signs with who and running the numbers on a player’s value, it’s the games that make me love baseball because of its inherent beauty in the little moments. Here in Spring Training probably more than any time in the season you have baseball in its simplest form, stripped of the pretense and the pomp and circumstance. It’s maybe not always the most competitive game, with a smattering of has-beens and never-was guys thrown in with the All-Stars, but its baseball, and after the cold winter months it’s a sight for sore eyes.
For anyone has never gone to a Spring Training game it’s something that every true baseball fan should see because of its uniqueness and simplicity. I was lucky enough to collect a few bucks and head down to Florida a couple years ago with a buddy of mine and the experience was unlike any I had before at a baseball game. My friend Kev, a Red Sox fan, and I a Yankee fan embarked on a weeklong odyssey in Florida to see as much baseball as we could handle. To be sure, I knew that it wouldn’t be like a day in the Bronx or Boston at the ball park, but I never expected what I saw down there the first day in Clearwater, Florida. The Yankees were playing the Phillies, with the incomparable Carl Pavano pitching against Cole Hamels, and instead of being crammed in a box seat we got to lay on a grassy hill in center field. Lying in the grass, drinking a beer and eating peanuts, it was like I was watching a game in my hometown, but no this was major leaguers, the best in the world. Indeed, this wasn’t like sitting in the top deck of Yankee Stadium, this was different, this was an intimate baseball experience with a few close friends. Everywhere you went multi-millionaire baseball players right in front of you, screwing around and chatting with fans. Heck, A-Rod was in the outfield during the game running wind sprints a good twenty feet away from me, twenty feet away! (God only knows why he decided to do that then, but it was a sight, the guy made me look small and I’m 6’4) Sure this wasn’t the level of intensity of the ALCS or the World Series, but this was something altogether different, something more unpretentious and fun.
Spring training isn’t for everyone to be sure, and I know there are a lot of people who probably find it boring, but for baseball fanatics like me it’s exciting to see the players who watch for 162 games in the regular season in a very different setting. Exciting not necessarily because the games are non-stop excitement, although there was some pretty great moments (I saw Joe McEwing of all people hit a walk-off grand slam for the Sox against the Blue Jays) but because it reminds you that at the core of baseball, when you cut through the bullshit baseball is a game, and a great one at that.
0 comments:
Post a Comment