Dodgers are gone, but Florida’s Grapefruit League rolls on
VIERA, Fla. — If the notion of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer appeals, Florida’s spring training scene may be just the ticket. It’s a chance to see whom the Dodgers might play in the regular season or — dare I say it? — in a playoff series.
That and not having to moisturize every 10 minutes pretty much make Florida’s Grapefruit League my preferred spring training destination.
Not that I’m an expert on spring training or Florida or especially the playoffs, the latter having been an impossibility if you grew up, as I did, as a Washington Senators fan in the ‘60s.
A March 2013 visit to family not far from Vero Beach, the late, lamented spring home of the Dodgers, put me within striking distance of three stadiums on Florida’s east coast. My enduring love for the Washington Nationals, who made the nation’s capital a baseball town once more in 2005, clinched a visit to Space Coast Stadium in Viera for a spring training game against Detroit.
Our seats were not more than 100 yards from where Bryce Harper, the Nats’ phenom outfielder, was playing. And it was the right kind of day for baseball — not too sunny, not too hot, not too humid (for Florida).
But a funny thing happened as I was getting ready to cheer my Nats: On the field, I was seeing (and a stadium such as the 7,400-seat Space Coast lets you get closer) Detroit’s Prince Fielder, Max Scherzer (who would win a 2013 Cy Young after a 21-3 season) and, my heart be still, Miguel Cabrera, who won the Triple Crown in 2012. Smitten.
Baseball being what it is, neither the Tigers nor the Dodgers ended up in the Series. And I won’t be in Florida this spring to catch the Nats in Viera or the Tigers in their Lakeland spring home. I’ll miss the Braves (Lake Buena Vista), Astros (Kissimmee), Orioles (Sarasota), Red Sox and Twins (Fort Myers), Marlins and Cardinals (Jupiter), Mets (Port St. Lucie), Yankees (Tampa), Phillies (Clearwater), Pirates (Bradenton), Rays (Port Charlotte) and Blue Jays (Dunedin).
But as we fans like to say, wait till next year.
Info: www.floridagrapefruitleague.com. Last games to be played March 29. To download a brochure, go to floridasports.uberflip.com/i/259303.
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