Posted on 03/17/2007 8:18:30 AM PDT by rhema
Years and years ago, when I was a sportswriter, I covered the Minnesota Twins in spring training at Tinker Field in Orlando, Fla. It was a rickety old ballpark. Not only was this a cushy assignment in terms of intensity and pacing, but I would say it was virtually an inconvenience for a ball club to actually have to print tickets so paying customers could watch a game.
Crowds of 600 seemed about average.
I only mention this because for the first time in about 25 years, I returned to spring training in Florida. The Twins now train in Fort Myers. Actually, they don't train. Today's ballplayers arrive at spring training already muscle-bound. The days of a second baseman working in the offseason selling auto parts are long gone. They tend to assemble as a team in March and work out some kinks and go through some infield drills and establish a pitching rotation, but it's not like they have to sweat off any beer bellies or try to kick the cigarette habit.
In any event, I was at the stadium last Saturday, Hammond Stadium, built in 1991. I sat on a bench in the shade outside the gates and watched in amazement as fans began arriving for a 1 p.m. game against Tampa Bay as early as 9:30 a.m. The concessionaires had been working for an hour before that, grilling Italian sausages. Most particularly, I watched a scalper who was working the parking lot. He was a graceless lout, not because he was scalping, but because he wasn't very good at it and tended to use profanity in front of children if Dad didn't buy his tickets.
"Hey, why don't you watch your mouth?'' I said to the guy at one point.
He told me to perform a task that would be difficult to do on myself. To show you how nice a day it was, that didn't bother me all that much. As I say, the guy was a lout.
I couldn't believe a spring training game drew scalpers, is my point. I couldn't process the atmosphere. It felt like I was sitting outside Fenway Park in July.
In my absence, and without consulting me, baseball, as an industry, obviously decided that it could make a great deal of money during spring training. I don't blame it, by the way. Baseball is the best of games. It draws people, and the Twins, especially after last season's dash to the finish line, are drawing as many people as the stadium holds, about 7,500 customers a game.
My question is this: Who are these people? Or, more accurately, what has happened in the past 25 years that has resulted in sold-out spring training games where you can get an Italian sausage?
Among our culture's most pressing questions, this was mine, at least for a weekend. I bounced it off a few spring-training veterans, sportswriters who haven't had the 25-year gap in their experience.
The answer? Cheap airfares. I don't know what an airplane ticket to Florida cost 25 years ago, but I bet it was more than $200. It is an answer that makes sense to me. There is no other explanation for why airplanes are so full of parents and kids wearing Twins jerseys. Our local airline has three, four flights a day to Fort Myers. It dumps off a load of Twins fans and picks up a load of Twins fans. It could probably do it 10 times a day if it had the planes and the gates.
It is an eye-opener to see such vast prosperity working in concert with affordable tickets. Like everything else, the winter getaway has been democratized!
Man, we thought we were living pretty high when we arrived at spring training in a deluxe school-bus orange Ford Pinto station wagon loaded down with pots and pans and bedding and clothes. You had to bring the pots and pans because you weren't getting any concessions at the ballpark, not like today. And tickets?
"Tickets, tickets,'' they said behind the one counter open for business, "let's see, they're around here someplace.''
BTTT
"days of a second baseman working in the offseason selling auto parts are long gone."
I don't remember any second-basemen selling auto parts, but I do remember the pride of Pittsfield, Mass., the Orioles' star shortstop Mark Belanger, ran a shoe store in the off season. That was the late 1960s early 1970s. Sad to say in looking him up I found out that he passed away in 1998,
You still need the pots and pans. Who can afford concessions for a family of five? It costs more than the airfare!
"what has happened in the last 25 years"
Ft. Meyers ( Lee County)
Lee County pop. 1980 census 200,000
Lee County pop. 2005 est. 500,000
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