Tommy TwoStep - 2008 Spring Training

March 13, 2008: Thursday morning US Airways flight into Tampa, Florida (NOTE: Early morning 7:30am flight). Quick, five minute drive to Legends Field for a Yankees-Pirates spring training afternoon game. Billy Crystal is announced as a designated hitter and bats leadoff for the New York Yankees. The entire stadium is a circus act. Older ladies with binoculars sit beside my father and me and offer to take a glimpse at no only Billy Crystal, but Robin Williams who is in club seats beside the Yankees dugout. Yup, sure is Robin Williams as I peer through the binoculars at the 60 something year old comedian/actor with a baseball cap twisted backwards. Hey, it's spring training, right?

The Thursday weather was picture perfect for a baseball game, 80 and sunny, enough to burn some skin -- no surprise for Florida in March. Its one thing to enjoy the sun at the beach, you get up run around, jump in the water -- its another thing to sit burden to a 3 hour baseball game parked in the same plastic seat watching balls and strikes of what would become a 5-3 Pirate victory. Wait? The Pirates beat the Yankee? C'mon the Yankees probably played their split squad. Nope. With the stupid exception of Billy Crystal striking out to lead off, the Yankees marched Jeter, A-Rod, Abreu, Matsui, Cano among many to the plate against Pirate started Paul Maholm. Good news for the Pirates, Maholm went 4 scoreless inning. By the time the scoring ramped up in the seventh inning, I was sweating it out in my black cap and green pirate tee, and jeans. Better off than my old man who failed to wear a lid to cover his exposed dome.

Pirates struggle to score a measly run in the top half of the seventh and the Yankees respond with two bombs in their half of the inning jumping to a 3-1 lead. The Pirates battle back and get 4 in the 8th including Andrew McCutchen burning around the bases after a walk in his only plate appearance (Note: The future of Pirate baseball. No pressure. Just a 20 year old, dreadlocked sunglass wearing high school drafted five-tool player who is going to relieve the Pittsburgh city of 15 years of losing. Again. No pressure kid)

Hour and half drive down to Sarasota, Florida for a 7:05 nightcap between the Phillies and Reds. 44-year old Jamie Moyer is on the mound and my pops and I are positioned beside a large group of what seemed like spring break students in a packed stadium (NOTE: OK, 6,500. Hey, it's spring training, right?). I flip through the thick Reds program I purchased for five bones, read about their top prospects and eye ball them each as they take their cuts at the savvy Moyer and chomp on some sunflower seeds. Red prospects Joey Votto and Chris Dickerson (the nephew of former NFL great Eric Dickerson) to be exact. Philly goes on to win 10-7. This offensive outburst without the services of Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, or Ryan Howard. Hey, it's just spring training. Right?

March 14, 2008: Up early Friday for a cross state drive to Jupiter, Florida for a Mets-Marlins early afternoon tilt. Three and a half hours in our Avis rental car, driving on state routes that wind through the middle, marshy part of the Sunshine state, arriving in Jupiter and gaining our tickets for the game. By now my dad and I are easily burning up and hurting from yesterdays Pirate-Yankee scorcher. My forearms feel as if someone wrapped them in duct tape and with every flex or movement of the muscle I wince in pain. Looking like the burnt tourists we are we ask for seats in the shade for the game. No luck there and we park ourselves in some box seats but the heat again is unbearable and we locate covered ground.

In an outfield pavilion we take in the 20 something year old Marlins club go to battle against the split squad Mets. Quick. Check you media guide for a pitcher named Brian Badenhop. He comes in and cools things down after the Marlins fall behind 7-0 early. He pitches 4 effective innings. The only stats the scoreboard can throw up for him are his Single-A pitching splits from last year. Safe to say he wont be making the big league club this year, but nonetheless a strong performance when the skipper needed him the most. My man Cameron Maybin goes 0-4 and disappoints me immensely. Hey, it's just spring training. Right?

Two hour drive up to Osceola County for the night tilt of Astros-Tigers. Skies are overcast early and rain starts falling. We get to the stadium but the line for the tickets is considerably long. Our solution. Find a scalper we find one and in our dash to dry, stadium glory manage to buy overpriced tickets ($35 for $20 face) that are not under cover from what now has become a steady Florida downpour.

Burned, miserable and now soaking wet, we sit through the first inning, but with more rain coming they umpires call the players off the field and within the next half hour, call the game. Hey, it's just spring training. Right? At least we got a Philly cheese steak in us before leaving the stadium at 9:00pm Friday night. Too bad we didn't get to catch more of the Tigers. They are stacked, their lineup card was filled up like the were playing in the opening round of the AL playoffs. Oh well, I get back to the hotel in time to check out Pitt upend Marquette and advance to the Big East finals against Georgetown.

March 15, 2008: Saturdays 1:00pm game takes us back to the Osceola County Stadium that we had just been rained out at for the earlier Astros contest. This time the Astros play against a split squad Braves team. By far the most impressive spring training pitching performance goes to potential 20 game winner Roy Oswalt of the Astros. He breezes through 6 no hit inning allowing only one runner to reach base (on a fielding error) and is lifted (literally by Lance Berkman who carries Oswalt off the field on his shoulders after the end of the sixth inning) to a standing ovation by the Astors crowd.

The opposing pitcher? Atlanta's Jair Jurrjens, a twenty something stud who the Pittsburgh Pirates could have acquired if they traded Jack Wilson to the Detroit Tigers midseason 2007. Instead the Pirates sat on Wilson and the Braves picked him in an off-season trade involving Edgar Rentaria. Jurrjens is a top 50 prospect and another flame throwing righty to pair with Ian Snell to offset soft lefties Tom Gorzelanney and the aforementioned Maholm. Anyways, Jurrjens doesn't fare very well, walks four batters and only lasts 2 2/3 innings before exciting. Hey, it's just spring training. Right?

Before hand I had the privilege of attending a Jam Fest girls cheerleading competition in a nearby field house. The old man had to meet up with a business partner who's daughter was competing and I got drug into the entire thing. One in a lifetime event there. Never had I been in the presence of more bloomers, eye liner, hairspray and female teenage hormones than this.

We manage to get out of the game and back to the Tampa airport by 5pm for our flight home to cold and rainy Pittsburgh and I am THAT GUY who arrives back north on a flight from Florida in shorts and a hoodie looking like the burnt tourist I am.

Florida spring training had left an impression on me. Mostly a sunny impression on my burned forearms, neck and face. I guess my pale skin wasn't fully prepared for the wrath of 80 sunshine after wallowing in Ellwood City's winter for 5 months.

Nine teams in 72 hours. 600 miles on the rental car and enough stadium hotdogs, Philly cheese steaks, cracker jacks and beers to hold me over until the Pirates open up the regular season April 7th against the Chicago Cubs.