Greetings From Sunny Florida...

Sadly, since Moneypenny's last post, the losing streak has continued. Despite that, I am content. Why? Because I'm in Florida, and I got to witness the glory of Spring Training on Tuesday-- and will again tomorrow morning.


















I have to say the coolest thing was watching BP and listening to Gardy joke around. I love Gardy. Hearing him go "Oh, my bad!" to the boys just made me love him more.


















Hammond Stadium is, I think, a pretty nice facility. It's not too huge, as I imagine Legends Field is, but it's not too small, either.


















The practice fields, from the perspective of the above picture, are located behind me. There are three fields (if I recall correctly) aside from the one in the stadium, the back ones used to minor league camp, I think.


















This was taken from the outer deck of Hammond Stadium. If you look closely, you can see some minor leaguers doing jumping-jacks in the distance.... and then, another shot of the interior...


















I watched the BP for a while (mostly I was waiting for a good opportunity to get a picture of Kevin Slowey, who was the acting ballboy)...























...saw Dick come by and chat up Alexi Casilla (no Bert though, much to my mother's dismay)...


















...saw Boof Light in the flesh, even though it was from a distance...sorry, I know it's blurry...























...saw LNP in the cages, hitting off a tee...


















...Sideshow was really nice to the fans waiting for the team outside the field, he came over right away and was all smiles...























...watched the boys warm up...


















...decided Adam Everett totally hi-lights his hair...


















...watched a nicely tanned Joe Mauer catch one of the two Ceremonial First Pitches...























...and then, of course, I saw the game.

The catch Craig Monroe made in the early innings was great. Nicky was running for it, and made it all the way out to right field, then jumped away at the last second as Monroe dove.

Let me tell you: it was good to see baseball again.

I have more pictures, but I can only mess around with Bloggers weird set up for so long...that, and I need to get to bed so I can drive back and see more baseball in the morning. Hopefully, our losing streak will end against the Pirates...

On a side note, the Rays-Yankees fight was epic. Those Girls capture it nicely, and so does the actual video from MLB.com... I like watching Jason Bartlett run up and try and stop it all. Good effort, Jason-- really.