When a career opportunity brought me here to the Ft. Lauderdale area, I was afraid that baseball for me would never be quite the same. I had enjoyed my last Phillies game in 
Philadelphia a few days before leaving town and realized, sadly, that I wouldn’t be renewing my season tickets for the following year. Friends assured me that soon I’d come to enjoy watching the Florida Marlins play at Dolphins Stadium. To be honest, that hasn’t happened. But one bonus of living in South Florida that hadn’t occurred to me is the availability of pre-season baseball. Yes, without realizing it, I had positioned myself to enjoy that annual exhibition of baseball talent called Spring Training!
Say those words slowly: S-P-R-I-N-G T-R-A-I-N-I-N-G. To most baseball fans these two words are just wishful thinking. Only residents of Florida and Arizona, and visitors to these two states, can indulge in live pre-season baseball. Too bad all fans don't have the opportunity to see this dress rehearsal for the regular season.
Fort Lauderdale Stadium isn’t pretty to look at, but it’s functional. Built in 1962, it was the longtime spring home of the New York Yankees until 1996 when they moved into Legends Field in Tampa. The Baltimore Orioles, who had hopped across Florida for years looking for a facility where they could “roost” for more than a year or two, then took up spring residence here and have remained in Ft Lauderdale to this day.
Although it’s in need of renovation, fans still enjoy spring baseball in this old-fashioned stadium with its covered grandstand and old-time atmosphere. Many in the crowd have been coming here since the Yankee days. Listening to them reminisce about players and teams from the past is part of the charm of this stadium. You can tell by the smiles on 
their faces and the sparkle in their eyes that it really doesn’t matter who’s playing on the field today. It’s the sights and sounds of the ballpark and those memories that are making today enjoyable.
Today’s game is a sellout. The “Os” usually don’t draw this large a crowd, but the Boston Red Sox are in town, and the South Florida contingency of the Red Sox Nation is here to show its support. It’s a Friday afternoon game, which means lots of white collar execs are taking a long lunch at the ballpark. Busloads of senior citizens are here, too, along with families visiting in the area. Red Sox caps, t-shirts and jerseys outnumber Orioles’ three to one. This is one of those times when the visitors get bigger cheers than the home team.
I like to think of a spring training baseball game as three games in one. The everyday starters begin the game and play for a couple of innings, followed by players who have a good chance to make the 25-man roster when camp breaks, followed by the guys with the high numbers on their jerseys, who, in all likelihood, you may not see until September or…..well, we won’t go any further with that thought. Let’s just say these guys will finish today’s game and look forward to another game here on another day. It’s not that they can’t play; it just may not be their time.
Ok, it’s time to play ball. And these two teams have come to show their offense. Each club has gotten more than ten hits, but today the Baltimore Orioles are getting the breaks. Their hits have produced twelve runs against the 2007 World Champs, who have managed to score only two. Maybe it was the strong wind from the south that moved fly balls from right field to center. Or maybe it was those line drives that seemed to find their way automatically into the third baseman’s glove. Whatever the reason, Orioles win 12-2. The home team is victorious. Hope you enjoyed the game!
