Spring Training: baseball as it should be

 3/23

Spring training

Fresh from Florida, I wear this year’s Pirates Spring Training hat and my favorite Pirates Hawaiian shirt. For aesthetic notes, the hats become batting practice hats in the regular season. This year’s edition is a version of the old school mesh “truckers hat” only fitted, not snap back. One ironic result is that the mesh lets in enough sun to create distinctive head tan patterns for shaved head players. 

The jerseys worn in spring training used to be called batting practice jerseys but really aren’t. No one wears them in batting practice anymore. Players prefer pull overs and hoodies and are a pretty motley crew for the most part. The only sad part is that without numbers, one has to have a very well trained …and informed eye…to know who’s batting.  As a kid, I used to love go early with my dad to see our favorites batting, easily identified. No more.

As I reflect on it, spring training is for me, baseball as it should be.  While playoff and World Series baseball is an exhibit of athleticism, skills and strategy at the most dramatic and artistic level, spring training is the expression of the game and its essential ethos in American culture.

The cozy ball parks hold only a small portion of what the big city stadia do. Many have berms where fans spread out on blankets or lounge on chaise lounges or Adirondack chairs. Many are nestled within middle class neighborhoods. There are exceptions...Tampa’s Steinbrenner stadium, just across the street from the NFL Buccaneers stadium has a classic stadium swagger as does the massive Astros/Nationals complex in West Palm. My favorites live as neighbors, part of the fabric of their community.

In Dunedin, people offer their driveways and yards for parking. In Lakeland you can park at the local Lutheran church whose congregants are grilling hot dogs and  have tables with old memorabilia.  In Bradenton, you can park at the Daily Bread soup kitchen and pay $5 to support them and buy a taco for the Korean guy who sets up his barbecue grill near the craft  brewery.

Joker Marchant Field

Ty Cobb

the Parrot made it

Sitting in the stands you hear conversations about “back home.” What part of Pittsburgh are you from? Remember the old Mud Hens park in Toledo? Dunedin is like an extension of Ontario. The ballparks have tastes of home like Detroit "coney dogs" in Lakeland, Iron City beers in Bradenton, crab cakes in Sarasota and "half smokes" in West Palm. The Pirate Parrot appears at Lecom and the racing Presidents are wearing aloha shirts in the Ballpark of the Palm beaches.  And the local  "booster club" of retirees staffs the stands in Bradenton. 

But best of all is the game, up close and almost touchable. Day games in the sun. Players actually stopping to sign autographs. (Many only for kids.) When a player's day is done, they’ll walk off the field to the clubhouse. 

It’s the time of year when everything still seems possible, even for a much abused Pirates fan. You get to see a different team every day. You do get to see some of your favorites for at least five innings. But also a lot of guys who are not yet in the economic stratosphere of the stars and even journeymen. Young. Eager. Hungry, as they say. Still close to normal. For many, this may be a close as they ever get to the show.  A year before his major league debut, I saw Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a walk off grand slam against the RedSox. Like that.

So …hats off to baseball, hats on for spring training.