Where do we have to go for warm weather spring training baseball?
Just as we did last year, my brother-in-law and I took in a spring training baseball game during the week Terry and I were visiting Panama City Beach, Fla.
It’s just one of the traditions we’ve developed on our annual trip south for spring break. All right, this is only the second year we’ve done it, but traditions have to start somewhere, don’t they?
It does require a road trip, since the spring training baseball sites are all in central or southern Florida and the nearest one to Panama City Beach is still a seven or eight-hour drive. But even for a spring training game, that’s not too far to go, right?
Steve and I certainly didn’t think so, so we set off Tuesday morning down the highway, headed for Tampa.
Now, one of the major reasons why all those baseball spring training camps are in central and southern Florida, as opposed to northern Florida, is because the weather is supposed to be warmer the farther south you go in Florida, no matter what the season.
Unfortunately, both years we’ve found that the weather for our baseball trip has defied that expectation. Last year, when we watched the defending World Champion Phillies play the Braves, it was on a cold, rainy Sunday in Orlando — so much for all those bright, sunshine-filled commercials for Disney World.
This year, we got to Tampa for a night game between the defending World Champion Yankees and the Astros as the temperature dropped down to numbers that the local tourism officials certainly won’t be including in any of the literature or brochures they’ll be sending out to prospective visitors.
The game program included an article about 1943, when the Yankees — due to World War II travel restrictions — held their spring training in Asbury Park, N.J. The temperature that night in Tampa made us feel like this was some kind of throwback promotion recreating that long-ago spring training experience. The only thing missing was snow.
We sat near a group of fans who had traveled over from Texas — for more than just an exhibition baseball game, I’m sure — who had to be wondering if they had misread the compass and driven north instead of east.
Now, while I grew up in New York state, I did not grow up a Yankees fan. In fact, most of my life I’ve been an ABY fan — as in Anybody But the Yankees.
However, my older brother Chuck was a lifelong Yankees fan and never missed a chance to let me know how well the Yankees were doing as compared to the teams I was rooting for.
He passed away about a year and a half ago, but I’m sure I could hear him laughing wildly when I ordered the tickets for a Yankees game before we drove down to Florida.
In his honor, I wore a Yankees cap to the game and had Steve take my picture wearing it while standing in front of the Yankees sign at George M. Steinbrenner Field — yes, that’s the Yankees’ spring training stadium.
But I made sure I was also wearing a Milwaukee Brewers t-shirt and a Wisconsin Badger jacket, to prove where my real loyalties lie and to outweigh that outrageous cap on my head.
It just goes to show the sacrifices one will make to honor loved ones who have passed on. And I could still hear that laughter as I stood there getting my picture taken wearing that Yankees cap.
The Yankees did win the game, but they did play their full squad against a split squad from the Astros. Houston didn’t play anybody wearing a three-digit number on their uniform, but there were several guys whose number was twice the temperature that night, or more.
It did mark the second year in a row that Steve and I have seen the previous year’s World Series winner at spring training, but I’m hoping that we won’t have to go to a Yankees game next spring to keep that tradition going. There’s only so far I’ll go in honor of my late brother.
Of course, for next year’s spring training game to include the team I’m hoping wins this year’s World Series, Steve and Evie will have to sell their condo in Panama City Beach and buy one in Arizona by then.
NEXT WEEK:
Wrapping up our Panama City Beach trip.
