Spring Training...

[SarasotaRepub]

SLW and I just got back from a night Spring Training game.

It was at Ed Smith Stadium here in Sarasota. The Orioles vs the Pirates.

The game was 0-0 when we left, it was 55 degrees and SLW was shivering
so we called it a night.

The stadium was just redone and it was very nice.

[SaintLouieWoman]

We left after the end of the 9th inning with the game still tied. The usher told us that they only go to 10 innings, max. This was the second spring training game that I've ever seen. It was fun. We had pretty close seats, so you didn't need binoculars to see the players. (It would have been way too expensive at Busch Stadium in STL to be sitting that close. Actually you probably couldn't have gotten tickets that close in the regular season at a Cards game, as most of those seats are season tickets).

But there's a remarkable difference between a big major league stadium and a spring training/minor league one. We went to Tampa and saw the Yankees and Cards play a couple of weeks ago. Both stadiums, in Tampa and Sarasota, are very nice. The Florida cities are spending big bucks to keep the stadiums nice, so the teams don't go to Arizona.

It's amazing how quickly an almost 3 year resident of Florida forgets about things like cold weather. It was embarassing how cold I was at that game. It was 67 at the start and about 57 at the end of the game.

They announced before the game that the temps were in the 30's and 20's in Pittsburgh and Baltimore, but 67 (at start of game) in Sarasota.

[NJCardFan]

I've never been to spring training. Don't know why. I lived in Arizona for 3 years, Tucson to be exact where the Diamondbacks, White Sox, and Rockies held their camps but never went and we only went to 1 AAA game(Tucson vs. New Orleans). What makes it strange is that I'm a huge baseball fan.