Alas, Dodgertown

Just felt like posting a shot from my first Spring Training trip, three years ago to Florida. I went specifically to see Dodgertown before the Dodgers left their longtime spring home for Arizona. I understand their need to move their spring base out west, closer to their Los Angeles home, but it's still sad to look through the photos and know that it's not like that anymore. It was a great day, a great way to spend a morning and afternoon as a baseball fan.

Starting a new Tradition (or Starting anew at Tradition)

If teams are supposed to bring at least four starters to road games in the spring, how do you tell with the Orioles?

That's a question I asked my new friends as we watched the Mets and Orioles from the second row behind home plate at Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie. The lineup on this day featured holdover veterans Aubrey Huff and Jay Gibbons, and then ... probable center fielder Adam Jones (who had been acquired from the Mariners in the Erik Bedard trade) and eventual Opening Day starter Jeremy Guthrie. All-Stars Brian Roberts and Nick Markakis didn't make the trip, though the two New Jersey guys I'd met this morning and the Frenchman who had joined us walking around the complex thought that third baseman Mike Costanzo was Markakis, and shouted at him during batting practice based on that assumption.


I'd been at the ballpark since 7:30 a.m., taking a shot at catching some of the players as they arrived for work. I saw some -- Carlos Delgado in his Mazerati pulling into the fenced-in players' lot, Johan Santana and Aaron Heilman through the screen over the fence as they walked from their cars into the clubhouse -- but only Heilman acknowledged us, saying he had to get inside. There were only five of us, yet still no willing signers.

Port St. Lucie was the best stop of the trip. It might've been the familiarity of the club or the relative friendliness of being with my own fans. At Dodgertown, I could've easily had Jason Schmidt's autograph, but I didn't have much of a desire. But in St. Lucie, I went to bed at 10 p.m. just so that I could get up at 6 o'clock to be at the complex by 7:30. I was, literally, the first fan there.

After a walk around the main field, I returned to a spot near the players' lot and met Jamie and Michael, the two brothers from central Jersey. We became fast friends and spent the day talking baseball. When I mentioned that I had to go buy a ticket to sit in the seats because I'd bought a berm-only ticket, they handed me one of their two spare complimentary seats two rows away from the Mets' on-deck circle. I even ended up in the aisle seat.

After two hours of nothing -- no players came over from the lot, though as I said, we saw Delgado, Santana, Heilman, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Brian Schneider and a few others, even if we were unsure of exactly who they were -- we walked through the practice fields with three fans from France who had made the trip and happily joined us around the grounds. Jamie and Michael saw two minor leaguers they'd gotten to know from going to games at Binghamton and Trenton -- Tim McNab and Mike Nickeas -- and we caught the big leaguers warming up for batting practice on Field 7, the one reconfigured with CitiField's dimensions. The outfielders were learning the angles just as we were usured out at 10:30, when the gates closed.

Though the Mets may have been the most unaccomodating of the three teams I saw -- no way to get autographs as the players arrive, only a short hour or 90 minutes to roam the fields, and a way-to-early forced exit at 10:30, then limited access near the dugout -- I enjoyed the brief glimpses in Port St. Lucie the most. But based on what others said about charging for workouts, I suspect the Braves are more uninviting. I arrived too late at the Disney complex to wander around, but I was told in PSL that Atlanta (or Disney) charges fans to enter the workouts. And though the Dodgers and Mets collected $5 for parking, that's $5 if it's one person in the car, but also if it's four.

Once we entered Tradition Field at 11 a.m., we spent about 90 minutes during Orioles batting practice waiting for Mets autographs and got nothing. They never emerged from the dugout, having completed all BP and warmups on the back field. That annoyed me. I haven't tried for any autographs in years, but I printed out some photos I've taken and felt an urge to meet a few guys for the first time in a long time.

My photos from behind the plate on this day are stellar, in my mind. It was a great afternoon for shooting, which made up for the lack of autographs. The Mets starters -- save pitcher Oliver Perez -- played through the sixth inning, and following Perez, we got Wagner, Heilman, Joe Smith and Duaner Sanchez. After the game, I went with Jamie and Michael to see Omar Minaya, but didn't think until much later that I should've mentioned my plan for the Home Run Apple to Fred Wilpon.

Jamie, Michael and I met up with the three French kids and the father/son pair from Islen once more before I headed north to my cousin Donna's house, another long drive through Floridian desolation with the iPod shuffling and the Prius coasting.

Port St. Lucie -- as remote and lonesome as it is, relative to the well-known Florida hotspots -- was the perfect end to this initial foray into spring training tourism. I'm eager to go back, though not as eager as I am for the course of this season, which is bound to be interesting. I don't know that I'd want to make it an annual trip (there are too many places I'd like to see to spend vacation time and money going to Florida every March), but I'd certainly be up for a somewhat regular return.

Won't you take me to ... Dodgertown

Down on the mid-Florida Atlantic coast -- the Treasure Coast -- sits Vero Beach, home to Dodgers Spring Training for 61 years ... until this year. Now that the deadlines have been met in Goodyear, Ariz., the Dodgers will train in the Cactus League beginning next year, ending a six-decade tradition that had come to mean Spring Training. Just those words, "Dodgertown" and "Vero Beach," meant that it was March, that the baseball season was just around the corner.

Coming off I-95, I went a few hundred yards on a local four-lane before turning left into what looked like any other old-growth Florida neighborhood or subdivision. Only when I came to the next traffic light in this area, a sign welcoming me to Dodgertown stood on the corner. I turned into the first parking area, which put me down the hill from the fence behind Holman Stadium's left-field berm, and walked back out to the main road -- such as it was -- and joined the rest of the late-arriving morning stream of fans. We were late for the morning workouts, but early for the game. Holman's gates weren't open yet, but the Dodgers were taking batting practice on a back field and minor leaguers were enduring pitchers fielding practice on another nearby diamond.

Dodgertown was quaint, a visit back to old-school Spring Training. Walking the grounds was like exploring a resort, the streets and paths having theme names and the recognizable figures passing the everyday visitors. The path from Holman and the main complex to the back fields and minor league headquarters -- Vin Scully Way -- was divided by rope, giving the players a clear road between the fields and stadium, yet allowing the fans easy up-close access as they passed. I headed that way to explore the grounds, watching the minor leaguers hustle, then hearing the clip-clop of their cleats on the asphalt as they left the field. Joe Torre sat in a golf cart on one field, the fans up against the backstop to get pictures of LA's new manager. From where we stood, we could hear the conversation clearly.

"We leave for Orlando tonight," Torre said. "And then tomorrow we'll fly to Phoenix before heading to China."

Heading back down the path, I looked over a group of fans lining the fence in the left-field corner, where Jason Schmidt was signing autographs. He signed for a long time, getting to everyone, which isn't too surprising -- it's not like he had any throwing to do this spring. Blake DeWitt also stopped on his return trip down Vin Scully Way. The fans went to get his signature too, perhaps unsure of who he was, but not wanting to take a chance to miss getting a signature from the next Dodgers Rookie of the Year or All-Star.

Holman Stadium's simplicity is striking. A '40s ballyard hosting one of the most valuable and recognizable franchises in the game. It was more than watching a big-league team on a minor league field -- it was watching it on a small-college field, a JUCO diamond in a small corner of the county. The only thing that made the players look out of place was their size -- giants on the diamond in some cases.

After a complete traverse of the concourse, from one foul pole to the other and back to the center, I grabbed some grub and settled into my seat -- five rows off the field at about the third-base coach's box. I was so close, I could just about see the smoke coming out of Larry Bowa's ears as he stood there, forced to wear a batting helmet.

In my lap was the day's giveway, a blue beach towel. I unfolded it to find that it was a Dodger Stadium towel, with a coupon attached. A man to my left noticed me looking at the coupon's fine print.

"You can get a free soda -- if you go to L.A.," he said as I read the details of the Carl's Jr. promotion of a free 32 oz. soda with any meal purchase.

"I can," I replied, "and if I do it before Oct. 31, 2007."

Just before the game began, the occupants of the four seats to my right, between me and the aisle, settled in -- a pair of older couples, the woman in the seat next to me with her cane. So that's when I decided I'd stay seated for the first five frames, then ask them to move so that I could get out and spend the rest of the game perambulating around the park. They were who you'd expect to see watching the Dodgers in Florida in March -- the retirees with time on their hands and savings to spend.

The main drawback to Holman was that smoking was allowed on the concourse beyond certain sections down either line, and I often found myself weaving around cancer clients taking up space. This lax rule allowed them to continue to watch the game, instead of forcing them down the steps to a more open area, near where the main merchandise tent stood and the restrooms were located. The restrooms were unusual for a ballpark, too, free-standing cinder-block-and-cement structures with the faint hint of a county park relief station (but in a good way).

I added to my collection of tiny plastic team helmets by getting soft-serve mint chocolate chip and headed toward the left-field berm. I got there and sat down at field level a few feet from the warning track, only a chain-link fence between me and left field. Shortly after I settled in, Juan Pierre, Andre Ethier and Delwyn Young arrived to run some sprints near the track before calling it a day and crossing the outfield to get back to the Dodgers' clubhouse. The berm had emptied out a bit from earlier in the game, and so I sat alone, with no one invading my space. Those around me were quiet enough so that when Pierre, Ethier and Young ran past, I could hear their grunts. When they walked back to the foul line for another set, I could hear their conversation. In between, it was nothing but the crack of the bat, the slap of the ball in the left fielder's mitt, and the echo of the public-address announcer calling another batter to the plate.

Baseball in the mouse's house

At one time, the acres of land southwest of Orlando, Florida, were undeveloped or consisted mainly of orange groves. But ever since Walt Disney established his World, the area has continued to grow. There are the theme parks -- internationally based, water-based, animal-based and movie-based -- a Downtown, a suburb (Celebration) and a whole Wide World of Sports.

After exiting the highway, you follow the signs -- in a cartoonish Disney font -- to your destination, turning this way and that, circling around it seems, disorienting yourself. Though I took the exit before 1 p.m., it wasn't until 1:05 that I stepped out of my car and made my way across the parking lot to Champion Stadium, named, I realized once inside, for the apparel company, and not any kind of run of success by its spring tennant, the Atlanta Braves.

The ballpark sits among a collection of other attractions situated, in true Disney fashion, as a sort of Main Street microcosm. It's nothing more than a wide concourse, an open-air mall of sorts, but with the paths intersecting outside the gates behind home plate and the nearby stores and restaurants having full-on facades, it still has the feeling of theme-park-as-neighborhood.

By the time I emerged from the tunnel and saw the field, Brian McCann was batting for the Braves in the bottom of the first inning. He singled in the first two runs in what became a 3-1 Atlanta victory. A healthy crowd -- sprinkled liberally with fans in Cardinals red supporting the visiting team -- sat in the sun, and though I walked out to my section of metal bleachers along the right-field line and found my seat in the back row, I never made my way across the legs of the half-dozen people already there. I stood the whole game, exploring the various angles of the ballpark. It's a Disneyfied setup -- the cartoonish font returns to mark the sections, and there are hardly any permanent Braves logos to be seen, because once April comes, this ballpark is home to the Double-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, the Orlando Rays.

The best part of the experience, of this first moment at a Spring Training exhibition game, is watching a Major League game -- even with a healthy dose of prospects and scrubs taking the place of the starts we'll see come the regular season -- in a minor league park. The little details that aren't noticed from any Major League loge or mezzanine section are enhanced here: Adam Wainwright's lanky height, Albert Pujols' chin resting on his front shoulder in his batting stance, Mark Teixeira's distinctive swing, Phil Niekro's chalk-line-white hair.

Among other things, I noticed that the Cardinals are wearing their red caps with their road gray uniforms, a change from recent (regular) seasons, when they'd wear a navy blue cap with red "STL" logo. And in a fun example of lawn art, the outfield grass had a silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head mowed into it.

As it is with players' performance or rookies' emergence, Spring Training can provide a hint of what's to come when the season begins in earnest. Maybe the Cards are doing away with the blue road caps (a shame, if it's true). And maybe Pujols' elbow injury won't take away from his game that much, after all, because he's still hitting the ball this spring the way we'd expect him to.

As I leave the ballpark and make my way across the sea of cars, I'm glad I made the Disney complex my first stop, because it's the most anticeptic, generic, corporatized ballpark of the three I'll see on this trip. I chose it over the Astros' camp in Kissimmee, and I probably would've enjoyed that a little more for the atmosphere (and gotten to see Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay take on the Astros' No. 1, Roy Oswalt), but Orlando proved to be a good choice because of the stars who played in this game -- not just Pujols, McCann and Teixeira, but Troy Glaus, Jeff Francoeur, probable Cards Opening Day pitcher Wainwright and Braves pitching prospect Jair Jurrjens. Plus, I found out his first name is pronounced "J-air," the sound of simply putting a "J" in front of the word "air."

I follow the line of cars snaking its way out of the labyrinth of the Disney complex -- parking here is free, something unique for me on this three-camp tour, but I hear later that the Braves charge fans to watch workouts, so in the end, it's not as great a deal when you're paying for each person individually, rather than by the carfull -- and hit the overpriced toll road east to Titusville. I've got a little space detour before I continue the baseball portion of this trip.