Baseball, Spring Training in Florida

BASEBALL AND MORE BASEBALL: Spring Training in Florida
by Dennis Ginoza March 24, 2011

Once baseball gets in your system, it seems to stay. As I travel around ball parks and I meet young and old, I find that the spirit of baseball has traversed generations. As a young boy, playing in the major leagues is a dream. There is much to the excitement of the game.

Last year, in early February, in Peoria, Arizona, I learned that the pitchers and the catchers are the first to arrive for spring training. A week later, the rest of the team arrive for their workouts. The veteran players are joined by many minor league players invited for the try outs. Over 70-80 players engage in every aspect of the game. I also learned that the roster is cut to 40 for the pre-season games and finally 25 for the major league season.

This year in early March, I saw baseball in another region—Florida. The fascination of the game continues. In Sarasota, Sylvia and I went to the home field of the Baltimore Orioles. For many years, It was the old training site for the Cincinnati Reds. There is no major parking lot so you scramble around looking for parking along the street or make shift parking areas made available. We found a dirt lot for $9.00. The Orioles were playing the Boston Red Sox.

As we stood singing the national anthem, the crowd went “Ohhh!” then continued to finish the song. I thought, “We must have missed something on the field when they went “Oh!” I asked the man next to me, “Did I miss something?” He laughed and said, “Here, they stressed the O for the Orioles” (in the line Oh say can you see?)

I was sitting next to two fans of early baseball. This guy next to me lived in New York and was a fan of the Giants. His favorite player was Willie Mays. In 1951, the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers were tied for the pennant and had a three game play-off series. They split the first two games. In the third game, the Dodgers were ahead 4-1 in the ninth. Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe showed tiredness so Ralph Blanca was called in. Giants Bobby Thompson hit a three run homer. “The Giants win the pennant!” This Giant fan saw it on television. It became known as the “ shot heard ‘round the world.”

We talked about Willie Mays of the Giants, Mickey Mantle of the Yankees, and Duke Snider of the Brooklyn Dodgers. They were three exciting ball players. So I asked him, did you see Stan Musial bat. He said, “Yes. Musial had an unusual stance.” “My friend here,” he says, “lived in St. Louis and went to the game with his father.” The friend said, “I saw Musial hit 5 home runs in two games. In those days, with one ticket you could see a double header. The day was May 2, 1954, against the Giants Musial also walked twice, hit a single, and drove in nine runs. He also told me, it was the Dodgers who gave the name to Musial, “Stan the Man.” When the St. Louis Cardinals came to Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn, the Dodgers fans would say, “The man is coming to town.”

Right there in Sarasota, the glory days of baseball was brought to light. It was an interesting day at the ball park. In the ninth inning, the game was tied, Orioles 4, Red Sox 4. In pre-season games, if tied, they played an extra inning. It remained tied.

When we learned that tickets in Florida are hard to come by, we ordered our tickets online to see the Yankees play. They have the most modern of stadiums with an updated scoreboard. The speed for every pitched ball is displayed, unlike the other stadiums. Sylvia decided not to go so my friend, Walt Prouty and I enjoyed the game from section 216, row O, 19 and 20, with a great view of the field.
Grammy Award Winner Kenny G played the National Anthem on his saxophone and holding a long note was a total treat! (When Sylvia heard this, she wished she had gone.) The Yankees played the Philadelphia Phillies. The Yankees looked good and the pitchers had a perfect game going through the fifth inning. Score: Yankees 7, Phillies 1. Sitting there in the stands, in the city of Tampa, having gone to Kissimmee, home of the Houston Astros, Sarasota, home of the Baltimore Orioles, and Bradenton, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, it was clear to me that baseball, while a great sport, is a money game.

With curiosity, I decided to check the team budget for 2011. Here lies the difference:

The four highest: Yankees $206,738,389
Red Sox $160, 913, 333
Cubs $146,609,000
Phillies $142,728,379

The two lowest: Padres $ 38,199,300
Pirates $ 34,933,000

In Sun City Center where we were guests of our friends, Mary and Walt Prouty. We went to Ashton Gardens to hear a lecture by Professor Philip Leto III of Discovery University. His theme was: “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” He is a professor of history, politics, international relations, and baseball.

As I mentioned earlier, the love of the game gets into you and it stays with you. Leto remembered the days when he went to the Tampa stadium to watch the Cincinnati Reds in their training camp. He has two broken bats, one from Roberto Clemente and the other from Johnny Bench.
He remembered well emulating Charlie Hustle,” Pete Rose.

When he was a young boy he asked Pete Rose for an autograph and Rose, in a hurry unkindly said, “Go to hell!” Pete broke Ty Cobb’s record of most career hits on September 11, 1985 before 47,237 fans at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. He got his 4,190 hit breaking Ty Cobb’s career record. His career statistics and accomplishments stand out: Rookie of the Year, 17 All Star appearances, 3 World Series rings, 3 batting titles, and a 44 game hitting streak. In 1985 he was named by ABC’s Wide World of Sports as Athlete of the Year.

But, Pete Rose was banned from baseball for his addiction with gambling. Leto talked about how Rose never found a way to show remorse and regain public confidence. “He never learned to cry,” says Leto, jokingly yet seriously. One day Leto was out with his mother for dinner and he saw a Corvette drive up, a blonde got out, as did Pete Rose. Leto went up to Rose and told him how, as a kid,
Rose told him, “Go to hell.” Rose went to his car, got a 8 x 10 photo and signed it. Leto says, will you also write on it, “Go to hell.” Rose did. Rose, Leto said, now carries these photos to make up for what he did. This is another moment in baseball history.

When I was playing little league baseball, with the finest coach I ever had, he would have us go to the Pioneer Theater in Lahaina (Maui) to watch some Major League teams on film. One of them was the Cincinnati Reds. Our coach kept reminding us about hustling, just like Pete Rose. It became a fundamental tool of our game. One added thing—our coach always stressed the building of character, the importance of discipline, and putting your mind into the game.

Baseball for some, is a boring game. It is, if you aren’t aware of what is happening. However, when you realize it is a game of strategy, every pitch is carefully chosen, every play is based on all the complex variables, and every player is set on his toes, the game is intense and dynamic. When Ryan Howard of the Boston Red Sox hit a long drive into left field, on a windy day in Sarasota, the ball kept on going and going. Homerun! …And the fans cheered.

The fun of the game as much is in the stands. Every foul ball in the stands creates excitement. A kid catching a ball with his glove or one with his bare hands, will bring out cheers from the fans. At the Yankees George Steinbrenner Stadium in Tampa, an older Phillies fan, caught the ball with his cap. He was a few feet from us. The man was thrilled and he said, “I waited all my life for this.” His wife said, “We live just outside of Philadelphia, but we had to come to Florida for this.”

In Florida there are fifteen Major League baseball teams with spring training locations. Geographically they are more spread out than in Arizona. In the four stadiums that we visited, the winds were strong, so strong, fly balls that would have been homeruns were easily caught or some fly balls would turn into homeruns. At Bradenton, at the higher level, the wind almost took my cap. The coastal breeze from the keys have a cooling effect which is nice.

The following are the teams and their Florida locations:

Atlanta Braves Lake Buena Vista
Baltimore Orioles Sarasota
Boston Red Sox Fort Myers
Detroit Tigers Lakeland
Florida Marlins Jupiter
Houston Astros Kissimmee
Minnesota Twins Fort Myers
New York Mets Lucie
New York Yankees Tampa
Philadelphia Phillies Clearwater
St. Louis Cardinals Jupiter
Toronto Blue Jays Dunedin
Washington Nationals Viera
Tampa Rays Port Charlotte

Baseball is a changing game. Car travel was joined by train travel. Today the modern airplane has changed the game, television brought the game into the living room, digital technology is displayed on giant screens, the late fifties move by the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants expanded the game from the East to the West, there the color barrier was broken, expansion teams quickly followed, stadium lights moved day games to night games, one writer added the insight of “money ball,” the game of skill has become as much, hitting with power and pitching has been transformed with specialization (relief pitchers) . One thing has not changed, umpiring is still based on a judgment call without video replays.

When we hear, “Play ball!” it will stir us with an American tradition now world wide.