Spring Training: Better than the California Penal League

For as many years as I've loved baseball, I've never had the opportunity to see a spring training game. There's a simple reason for that. I've never lived in Florida or Arizona. But, on my recent vacation to Florida, I had the opportunity to go to Kissimmee to Osceola Heritage Park for my first ever spring training game.

Osceola Heritage Park is the spring training home of the Houston Astros. The Astros were facing off against the Atlanta Braves. You probably couldn't have grabbed two teams that I have less of a connection with, so my interest in the game was already high. I couldn't even name you a player on the Astros roster if asked before the game. But, it was beautiful day and baseball, so I was looking forward to it.

Spring training is impressive because this park is actually smaller than a minor league stadium, but you get to watch major league teams in action. Every person who works at the park was very nice, and even though the concessions are still overpriced, they are at a rate that seems appropriate for spring training. A $3 pop compared to a regular season, major league stadium price of over $5.

The game wasn't particularly exciting probably because I had no vested interest in either of the teams and recognized only three of the eighteen players in the starting line-up. Dan Uggla was one of the lucky three and he hit a home run to left field that got the Braves fans in the crowd excited.

The oddest moment came with the music selection by the DJ. Anytime that there was a break in the action, Skylar Grey's portion of “Coming Home” was played, which is the kind of song that could only potentially put you over the edge into sleep at a spring training game. I felt like there had to be a better song if they were going to play something whenever the catcher came to the mound. My immediate thought in my mind as to what song that should be?:

I guess it works. At least, I would have gotten a chuckle while the rest of the crowd got completely confused.

My brother and I left after the sixth inning. While it was a beautiful day to enjoy baseball, I think we were both nearly falling asleep watching back-up players for the Astros commit throwing errors.

As we headed out, I decided to use the bathroom. When I got out, my brother had a ball in his hand. He had caught a foul ball. By caught, it meant that it rolled towards him after bouncing off the memorabilia table he was looking at. Ahh, spring training. You're more likely to get knocked in the head by a ball while getting nachos than actually being in the ballpark. Not really interested in keeping a baseball, my brother and I looked for a kid we could give the ball to. There were none around. The only person that approached us was a guy who wanted a ticket stub to get back into the ballpark so he could buy his brother a baseball. My brother gave him the ticket stub, and wondered why he didn't just give him the baseball he caught. It would have been a wonderful gift from siblings to other siblings.

So, all in all, it was spring training. The action and experience was deserving of the C- baseball I expected. But, it was a beautiful day, and it's baseball, and there may be no better live sports experience than that.