 |
Since television
and linear regression have robbed us of most of the innocence and wonder with
which we once approached the world, I decided to spend part of my spring break
taking in one of America’s few remaining pure pleasures: baseball’s spring
training. I figured that this kind of excursion would be enjoyable for a
hardcore baseball fan (I’ve been a St. Louis Cardinals fan for almost my entire
life), but I had no idea what was in store for me.
On Tuesday, March
9, I arrived at Jupiter’s Roger Dean Stadium at 10:30, about two and a half
hours before game time, and I found my way to the practice fields behind the
stadium, where the Cards were going through various drills. There were over a
hundred fans at these practice fields, just taking in anything (and I mean
anything) that went on. Since most of the regulars were practicing on a
distant field, the fans were forced to settle for some of the more mundane
goings on at the three fields adjacent to the fan area. We saw a lot of jersey
numbers in the seventies and eighties, which meant that these were players we
would probably never see again. And we couldn’t have cared less.
On one of the
fields, Cardinals pitchers were throwing to a catcher who raised some eyebrows
among the fans, a youngster bearing the number 83 and the surname “Pagnozzi”.
Tom Pagnozzi had been an above average major league catcher for a number of
years, so fans were naturally curious about his relation to the
soon-to-be-former Cardinal. When it was discovered that this Pagnozzi was actually
the nephew of his major league namesake, the news spread pretty quickly across
our little society. On another field, we watched pitchers, the lightest hitters
on the team, take batting practice. These are the things people pay attention
to at training camp.
Once the action on
the practice fields subsided, I wandered back to the stadium. I joined a number
of fans along the right field line waiting for the players to arrive from the
clubhouse. I was expecting to see autograph seekers when I got here, but I was
totally unprepared for what I found. There were plenty of children, even more
than I expected. The children were great because they had a genuine interest in
their favorite players, and they were very appreciative when they received an
autograph. There was also a handful of adults for whom the autograph session
was a chance to enhance a collection. Some had bats or balls with ten or more
autographs already on them, and others had catalogs of pictures and cards, often
indexed by last name so that they could be pulled out when a certain player came
by. And then there were the veterans, those who had been to numerous spring
trainings and, though they got their fair share of autographs, cared less about
the autograph than the knowledge they had of the game and of the players
themselves. One older fan in my area specialized in arcane Cardinals trivia,
and he gave the younger fans tips on how to get the autographs of their favorite
players.
I discovered that
the game was secondary to everything else that goes on at spring training, but
the Tuesday’s game was still very enjoyable—I can’t complain about any game that
features a player scoring from second on an infield hit and the final runs
coming on a tenth inning walk-off home run. I also enjoyed the stories told by
an usher who sat by me, who also happened to be a former Kansas City Royal.
Wednesday’s game
was against the Boston Red Sox, and it had sold out in January. I decided to
get to the stadium at 8:30 to get one of the 200 tickets that went on sale at
9:00 for the grass-covered berm in the outfield. Little did I know that people
started arriving at 6:00, and by the time I arrived the line snaked a couple
hundred feet across the front of the stadium. I was a couple people too far
back in line to get these tickets, but thankfully some others opened up just in
time.
Today’s practice
field highlight was a B-team game between the Cardinals and the Mets that
featured players who were not guaranteed a roster spot. I found a spot along
the chain link fence about thirty feet behind home plate, easily the closest
I’ve ever seen major leaguers in action. And though I had no idea who most of
these people were, I did recognize a few of them. Players like Todd Zeile, John
Mabry, Shane Spencer, and Greg Vaughn, major league regulars just a few years
ago, all were relegated to a game in which the real stars would cut across the
outfield to get from their practice field back to the clubhouse.
I watched the game
with an older couple from Illinois, who said they don’t like the games as much
anymore with all the prolonged breaks, so they attend only thirty a year. It’s
tough to blame them, though—they live about a hundred miles from St. Louis.
Talking with this pleasant couple taught me again that the ability to talk
baseball at a bar or even in a major league ballpark doesn’t translate to spring
training. When one batter came to the plate, the woman commented that he had
had a lot of trouble yesterday with the knuckleballer. I replied, “That’s
right, what was his name?”, not wanting to let on that I had no idea who she was
talking about. The woman opened up a notebook she had been keeping, which
appeared to be her own way of keeping score. It contained a number of
scrawlings and symbols that presumably added up to a narrative of what she found
important during the game. She found the name “Julioos” (spelled
phonetically,
so she could remember how to pronounce it) in an isolated spot on the page, and
she apologized to me because, despite her efforts, she still wasn’t sure she was
pronouncing it correctly.
The scene at the
practice fields today was spring training at its best: fans had their choice
between evaluating players they may never see again and participating in a
conversation with popular relief pitchers Steve Kline and Jason Isringhausen,
who held court along a nearby fence. One woman, who seemed to consider herself
a close personal friend of Kline’s, recounted that he talked about wanting to
perform well so that he can stay in St. Louis, which is the thing Cardinals fans
look forward to hearing more than anything else.
Along the rail
inside the stadium today I met a pair of boys, the younger of whom seemed to be
on a constant sugar high. In between repeatedly stealing his brother’s hat and
trying to write on me with his Sharpie, he talked about all the autographs he
had collected and what he knew about the team. When an usher came by to
distribute free baseball cards, this kid was practically falling over the rail
trying to grab at them.
Unbridled optimism
has long been the staple of spring training, and it seems to be most pronounced
in the youngest and oldest baseball fans. After I had finished talking with my
Little League friends, who spoke as if anyone wearing the “birds on a bat”
jersey was a superhero, I talked with two retired women, one from Florida and
one from St. Louis. They were both Cardinals fans, but their love of the
ballclub came from having experienced so many ups and downs with the team.
Whereas the children awed at the Cardinals from a distance, these women, as well
as many similar people I met, exuded a closeness to the team and the city that
fed positive predictions for the upcoming season. Having experienced my fair
share of jaded sports fans, it was heartening to be reminded that prolonged
exposure to a sports culture can have the opposite effect as well.
There was one
common thread that ran through everyone I met at spring training, apart from the
fact that they were all huge baseball fans: they all kept coming back to spring
training multiple times. And based on my experience this week, I have to say
that the same will be true of me soon enough. |