Spring Baseball

Tee and Joan arrived home Thursday evening. The week of spring baseball was delightful; they saw two Boston Red Sox games and two Minnesota Twins games. In the process they spent warm (sometimes hot) afternoons in four different ball parks soaking in baseball and sun. Good thing too as the sun was scarce at home. The only drawback to seeing those four stadiums was the bus rides to and from. The new facility that the Phillies have in Clearwater, Florida is a lovely place and it was great fun to sit and watch a ballgame there. The Twins stadium in Fort Myers is also very nice, but not brand new. Sad to announce that our Twins lost both games that they saw. The Twins fans were a minority at this elderhostel and the Boston fans saw four games that Boston played including one in which Dice-K (their new pitching phnom) pitched six innings.

Besides seeing games there were speakers that talked to them about baseball. Tom Giles taught about the written, verbal and non verbal languages of baskeball. Leon Harris, who had been a player in the Negro League, told about his experiences there. Leon had been a pitcher with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro League. Currently there is a one man show taking place in Sarosota titled "Nobody Don't Like Yogi". David Howard who plays Yogi came and spoke to the group about Yogi and did a piece from his show which everyone enjoyed immensely. John O'Donoghue who had been a pitcher with Kansas City, Cleveland, Seattle and Montreal was very entertaining with his stories about pitching in the major leagues. He had pitched in the Mickey Mantle era. Our final speaker was Jeff Torborg who was a catcher for the Dodgers for many years. He was involved in some real history making games; Sandy Koufax's perfect game, and the fifth of Don Drysdale's six consecutive shutouts. Later he caught for the Angels and had the privilege of catching a Nolan Ryan no-hitter.

Here is a photo of Tee and Joan outside the Twins stadium in Fort Myers.