Friday, April 01, 2016
Spring Training Notes
Either
you have booked a flight, or you are busy packing the car to take the
kids south for a few rays of sunshine. For those of us who spend more
than two weeks a year in the south, we hope you won't be
disappointed. When you arrive south, I hope you will get a chance to
see some activity at a spring training facility.
Baseball
players begin to assemble in two main locations in February, Florida
and Arizona. The general rule is that pitchers and catchers show up a
little earlier than the rest of the players. That is not necessarily
the case, as a lot of teams have facilities to host dozens of their
prospects. The Minnesota Twins have schooling, residences, fine food,
and plenty of coaching to give their younger prospects a head start.
At the fabulous fountain, Hammond Stadium.
Spring
training facilities are really spectacular places to see baseball.
There are usually at least half a dozen ball fields, all in superb
condition. Clubhouses are enormous, as you can well imagine. There
are usually 50 or so players on the Major League list, to be cut to
25 when the season opens. Then there is a group at the AAA level-the
Rochester Red Wings for the Twins. They also have a Double A team in
Chattanooga, and Single A teams in Fort Myers and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The Rookie league team plays in the Appalachian League in
Elizabethton, Tennessee. Finally, there is a Gulf Coast League team
based out of Fort Myers.
There
are a lot of steps to climb to secure a spot on the bench of a big
league team. Such is the nature of professional sports, no different
for any of the other sports.
Many
teams come into Spring Training with their rosters virtually set for
the coming year. There will be a few places to be filled on the
roster, but not many. I would venture to say that Alex Rodriguez
could go hitless in the spring and still be on the Yankees roster
when they break camp.
Part
of the fun of spring training for the fan is to try to predict which
players might crack the lineup for the opening roster when the games
count. Newspapers keep track of wins and losses, and they publish the
results of all the games. They are completely meaningless.
“Standings”
are displayed daily in the newspapers for the teams playing in
Florida-”The Grapefruit League”, and those in Arizona-”The
Cactus League”. Occasionally, there are ties in spring games: end
of nine innings, all tied up? Start the bus. Teams will also play
“Split squad” games. The Yankees would be playing in Dunedin and
Clearwater at the same time.
On
such occasions, you might not see all of your favourite team's stars
at a particular venue. Such is the case at all Spring training games.
In fact, several teams this spring have been fined by Major League
Baseball for not using their regular players often enough. Fans flock
to the southern stadiums to see their favourite players, and leave
disappointed because the team uses lesser-known talent on a
particular day. It may be because of injuries, or because the
managers and coaches want to have a closer look at potential players.
This occurs most often when a team is on the road. The tried and true
superstars will not make the trip, much to the disappointment of
their fans.
On
March 30th, the Blue Jays came to Fort Myers to play the
Twins. Before the game, the Jays took their swats from the cage. When
they took the field, this is how they lined up: Humberto Quintero,
catcher; Casey Kotchman, 1b; David Adams, 2b; Andy Burns, 3b; Jio
Mier, ss; Melky Mesa, lf; Roeman Fields, cf; Domonic Brown, rf; Ryan
Tepera on the mound. The Jays # 72 hit some deep balls before the
game, but not in the game when he was inserted in the lineup.
Major
league teams will occasionally leave one facility and head to
another. There are rumblings that the Toronto Blue Jays might leave
Dunedin. Their spring facility holds less that 6 000 fans, and the
teams like to make a little money while they prepare for the season.
They have averaged 70 000 fans over the last five years for games
played in Dunedin.
In
contrast, Arizona has averaged 180 000 fans over that same time span.
The Red Sox are in the 150 000 range, as are most of the other
teams. You can do the math; the Jays are hurting slightly in this
regard.
Teams
draw fans to certain areas in Florida and Arizona. There are two MLB
teams in Fort Myers. The Red Sox played at a fine old ball park in
downtown Fort Myers for many years. Management deemed the facilities
unacceptable. Local politicians got together and used a carrot to
keep the Bostonians in Fort Myers-more than $ 50 000 000. The city of
Fort Myers and Lee County have upgraded the Twins' ball parks to the
tune of more that $ 40 000 000. It is big business.
The
Toronto Blue Jays lead the standings as they head north to play the Boston Red Sox at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. They are
still testing the waters to see if there is enough interest to place
a Major League team, or, more likely, to move one to the city. The
Jays have 17 wins and 6 losses. The Twins have played 29 games with
19 wins. If a game is rained out, it's history. If games are tied
after nine innings, leave it at that. A bit of a sister kisser. These
are proving grounds, and the wins and losses mean nothing.
All
of the experts have decided that the Jays are going to win the
American League East Division. A tough chore to say the least:
Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, and the Rays have other notions.
See
you at the ball park.
James
Hurst
# posted by James Hurst @ 7:48 PM 
