It’s going to be alright now. Pitchers and catchers reported to their Spring Training camps this week; the others are trickling in; everybody will be full-strength next week.  Chipper Jones is back, taking full cuts and fielding grounders at Disney; Manny is in St. Pete with Tampa Bay now; same old hair, but a whole new attitude. We’ll see.  Anyway, all’s right with the world right now.  Even the weather sat up to the sound of popping leather, stretched, and decided, as my mother used to say–to straighten up and fly right–hence this beautiful weekend in Florida. 

We have professional baseball on Skinny Island, you know.  Well, not technically on Skinny Island, but its own island between Skinny and the mainland, in Downtown Daytona Beach, just a few miles south. It’s the Daytona Cubs, a Class A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.  They play in a sweet little ball park, all surrounded by water. In summer you can sit up in the bleachers and watch the sky colors change above the emerald green outfield and feel the breeze blow in off the ocean. Its got to be one of the best places in the country to watch a game.  This year we are going to be Silver Sluggers.  It’s a promotion the team has for us elderly folks.  For $15 dollars apiece you get seven home games, a T-shirt, special drink rates, and an ID card. Don’t know how you can beat that anywhere.  I’m not sure whether they seat all the geezers together or not.  I wouldn’t, but I’m not the owner, and most people would think that’s fine, anyway.

 We got seriously into professional baseball several years back.  Having been born and raised in Tampa, Papa got it in his head shortly after the Tampa Bay franchise took the field, that we should be supporters. We bought two partial season ticket packages– 22 games– in the upper deck down the third base line. That was in 2000.  We had tickets to at least one game in every home stand, sometimes a Saturday and a Sunday, sometimes mid-week.  Papa still had his Alfa Romeo Spyder in those days, so we would jump in the little roadster about three in the afternoon for weekday games; drive three hours; sit three hours. then drive back three again; and go to work next morning.  Nothing to it.  For back-to-back weekend games we would stay over.  We found a wonderful place on Treasure Island overlooking Boca Ciega Bay called The Bluenose, now closed and torn down, a classic old Florida motel, and it became our regular sleep-over.

The second year we got tickets down on the first level, a little down the first base line from the home team dug-out, and continued our break-neck driving pace back and forth.  Meemaw called it the Tilt-a-Whirl. We liked that so much we decided to move even closer to home plate, and the third year bought tickets right behind the home team dugout, about fifteen rows up.  Perfect seats, with great seat neighbors. That’s when we started looking for a house.

We were driving over so much, and forking out dough for a room, it seemed to make sense. Plus we really like the area. We found and bought a little house a few minutes from the ballpark and about the same distance from the beach.  It was our baseball house.  Papa used to sit in the stands and figure how much each game, inning and pitch was costing him. The Alfa gave way to a 1969 Volkswagon bus, great for pre-game tail-gating, and then a mundane Saturn.  Meanwhile the team was horrible.  They lost to everybody, all the time.  Attendance was terrible, but ticket prices continued to climb year after year. We had those seats through the ’06 season, then gave them up.  Too costly to continue watching them lose. The season after that next one they went to the play-offs, and then the World Series.  You’re welcome. 

We kept the house. We still go over when we can, and we still go to an occasional game.  We saw our old seat friends last year, and they are fine, but also getting tired.  They said having the World Series at the Trop was worth all the pain.  I’m sure they’ll be back again this year.