After years of promising ourselves to do this, Joe and I FINALLY got involved in Spring Training in Florida. It is called, appropriately, the "Grapefruit League." There are a bunch of major league teams that come to different venues in Florida and play each other. We went to four games in four different locations. We saw the Atlanta Braves vs the New York Yankees at Disney Wide World of Sports in Orlando, the Yankees vs the Toronto Blue Jays in Tampa, The Tampa Bay Rays vs the Pittsburgh Pirates in Port Charlotte, and the Blue Jays vs the Rays in Dunedin. The stadium at Disney is beautiful and clean, as you would expect from Disney. George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa is, by my guess, a miniature Yankees Stadium. This stadium had all the atmosphere of a major league ball park, complete with the beer vendors in the stands, hawking "cold beer here," at the top of their voices. The Rays new stadium in Port Charlotte was a bit of a drive for us (about an hour and a half), but it was nice and intimate even though it got our vote for the worst hothogs! The drive to Dunedin, which is considered to be in the Tampa metro area, was horrible. We just should have gone to Port Charlotte again, to see our Rays. Not to mention, we were hot as hell and left in the fifth inning.
But, we did Spring Training and hope to do more games next Spring. It's a wonderful way to spend the month of March in Florida!
