TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/041789/04178900.050

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 8.6 KB | 166 lines

                                                                                AMERICAN SCENE, Page 10

Florida

Spring's Old Sweet Song


Preseason baseball's charm survives slick new parks

By J.D. Reed


    Dry palm fronds rattle behind the right-field fence. The
odors of peanuts, mustard and beer waft over the emerald green
grass, and in the inebriating sunshine, laughter and catcalls
issue from the bleachers. An eight-year-old boy waves a
miniature bat, a bikini-clad college student ogles the first
baseman, and a pair of guys in U.A.W. T shirts argue earned-run
averages in the shade of an entryway tunnel. At the plate, a
nervous hopeful up from the minors squares his batting helmet
and prays to the puffy clouds above the orange groves: God,
please send the next one right down the chute.

    Long before there was a Magic Kingdom, Florida was an
enchanted land, a place where the vernal verities of spring
training stopped time in its tracks. A recent preseason game
between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds in
Plant City reassured like a Norman Rockwell painting: in some
ways, things haven't changed. Bats are swinging, and all's right
with the nation. The rituals that are played out in Florida and
Arizona from early March into April are part of baseball's
enduring legacy, and generations of Northerners have taken
refuge here in the balmy revels and toasty traditions of the
grapefruit league.

    Now, thanks to cable television, which beams preseason games
back home, and to attractions such as Disney World, which draws
millions of affluent tourists to Florida, spring training is
becoming big business. That approach could threaten the easy
charm of the national pastime, but so far, the sport seems to be
succeeding on both offense and defense.

    Elaborate facilities and swelling crowds are transforming
spring training. The New York Mets and the Kansas City Royals
have moved into new and slicker stadiums since 1987. In 1982
only 778,000 fans visited the 18 teams that train in Florida;
last year the number nearly doubled, to 1.3 million; an even
higher total is expected for 1989. Similar gains have been made
in Arizona's cactus league, where eight teams work out.

    Preseason contests used to be a bargain, a cheap way to see
one's heroes at work. But now they're a pricey entertainment.
For a preseason box seat at aging Tinker Field in Orlando, the
Minnesota Twins charge $7, about what it costs for an average
seat during the regular season at the Hubert H. Humphrey
Metrodome in Minneapolis. In 1991 the Twins are scheduled to
move to a new complex in Fort Myers. "Spring training is a very
special time unique to baseball," says Dean Vogelaar, Kansas
City Royals vice president for public relations. "But it's a
tourist crowd now."

    The Royals, who spent 19 years at a smaller stadium in Fort
Myers, teamed up in 1988 with an amusement park located just
southwest of "Mouse Town," the locals' term for Disney World.
Boardwalk and Baseball, which dominates the skyline over
surrounding orange groves, features both the Lipizzaner
stallions and first baseman George Brett. For a dear $21, a fan
can spend a day riding the roller coaster and taking in a
contest at the Royals' 8,000-seat stadium, where some 400
major- and minor-league games were played last year.

    Among the baseball-oriented attractions on the boardwalk are
batting cages where kids can try out their Little League swings
against pitching machines and a throwing game that clocks the
speed of visitors' fastballs. Although they are Reds fans, Wayne
and Ruth Thomas from Lebanon, Ohio, and their baseball-loving
sons David, 8, and Mark, 6, were so taken with Boardwalk and
Baseball that they stayed nearby on their first Florida
vacation. "We've planned this trip for months," says Wayne, "and
we've already been to five games."

    While Disneyfication may be packing them into the new
stadiums, traditional aspects of spring training still bloom in
the sunshine. Even in the parks closer to professional size,
fans are much nearer to the action and the players than they
are during the regular season. The game seems larger than life.
Up close, the players look like a squad of stunt men pretending
to be athletes. They are too healthy, have too many capped
teeth and gold chains, and look a little too old to be the real
boys of summer.

    Spring training remains a time of testing for regulars in
the lineup and for minor-league hotshots. It is a process that
remains accessible to fans. At the Reds' new 6,700-seat stadium
in Plant City, for instance, the fences may be a bit higher and
the beer a bit more expensive, but one can hear the chewing
tobacco hit the grass and smell the liniment on sore muscles.
Conversations drift into the stands as players jaw about
nursery schools and batting stances, free-agent trades and
restaurants. During a recent game, a Cardinals rightfielder
edged close to the Reds' bullpen because he wanted to talk to
a former teammate who was nursing his elbow on an ice pack. The
Card would occasionally sprint away to stab at a fly ball, and
then drift back for more gab. Says Minnesota Twins catcher Brian
Harper: "The fields are smaller, so it's easier for fans to get
to us. That's one of the best parts of spring training."

    For kids, spring training means touching heroes; for many
dads, it's a flashback to their own childhood. At 8 on a recent
morning, families stood by the Tinker Field gate to see Twins
players arrive for the afternoon game with the Toronto Blue
Jays. Boys and a few girls held out Donald Duck autograph
books, baseballs, photographs and baseball cards to be signed
by particular stars. Stephen and Gregory St. Jacques, 10 and 8
respectively, collected the signatures of pitcher Allan
Anderson and second baseman Steve Lombardozzi, among others. "I
never got to spring training when I was young," said the boys'
father Jerry St. Jacques, a Virginia computer-program director.
"This trip is a part of my youth too."

    Fans lined the fence by the Twins' batting cages to watch
players, just a few feet away, groove their swings against
automatic pitching machines. American League leading hitter
Kirby Puckett (.356) whacked a few dozen balls and then
wandered over to the fence to sign his name on caps, baseballs
and odd pieces of paper. Puckett spends an hour or so a day
signing baseball cards mailed to him by fans and sending them
back in postpaid envelopes. He was joined by Cy Young Award
winner Frank Viola, who pitched a 24-7 season last year. The
chain link fence is some eight feet high, so kids tossed their
books and balls over the top. After signing, the players threw
the objects back over the fence, in one of Viola's favorite
spring rituals. "I was a shy kid," remembers the Long Island
native, "so I had my mom ask for Rick Barry's autograph at a
Nets game once. He refused. So I take as much time as I can
signing autographs. The kids take it as a challenge. I'm easy
to get, but some guys are tough."

    Other time-honored spring rituals take place at the fences.
The wives and children of players often come out to games in
Florida. Babies are dandled at the chain link, to be smooched by
unshaven dads wearing polyester knickers and adorned with smears
of soot under their eyes. Unmarried rookies attract wilder rail
birds. Young women wearing shrink-wrapped slacks call hello to
bullpen inmates; dates are made and possibly kept.

    In Florida baseball cuts across the generation gap. There
are two kinds of attractions here: adult, which means no
children allowed, and family, indicating the loud presence of
small people. But college students on spring break occasionally
turn their beer-dousing noses away from Daytona Beach long
enough to take in a game. Senior citizen Jack Keidel, who
retired to Orlando some years ago and now works as a volunteer
usher at Twins games, speaks for many of his peers when he says
that baseball "breaks up the monotony of endless golf." A
14-year-old wearing a T shirt emblazoned with the face of the
Reds' Chris Sabo, the N.L. Rookie of the Year in '88, says,
"It's a toss-up. Baseball and girls are about equally boss."

    There may be new stadiums in Florida and big microwave
dishes beside them to beam games to snowbound fans back home.
But so far, at least, traditionalists need not worry. As the
Reds battled past the Cards a couple of weeks ago, a boy ran a
ballpoint pen along the bullpen fence. Jeff Gray, a young
Cincinnati reliever, smiled and started walking toward him. The
boy arced his baseball over the fence, and Gray caught it
easily and said, "Where do you want me to sign?"