Take Me Out To The Ball Game

While visiting south Florida there's been a superfluity of sporting events in both Fort Lauderdale and nearby Miami. The NHL's Panthers played the Toronto Maple Leafs. One of the early rounds of March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament, was hosted in Miami as was the world baseball series and so on. But we didn't go for those big ticket items. Oh no. We decided to take in that great American pastime: Spring Training.

Fort Lauderdale Stadium was built in 1962 and up until about 1996 was spring training home to the New York Yankees. Since then, when the Yankees moved on to Legends Field in Tampa, the Baltimore Orioles have played there.

My buddy and I got tickets to the Orioles vs the Tampa Rays but unfortunately the game was rained out. Sure, fly 1500 miles from snow covered Canada in search of fun in the sun and encounter 17 straight hours of rain and flood alerts. We weren't off to a good start. Undaunted we traded our tickets in for a game with the Washington Nationals, which worked out well for a couple of Canucks. The Nats, you see, used to be the Montreal Expos.

Here's the main entrance of Fort Lauderdale Stadium...

Here's a shot of the press box...

Here's the opening pitch. The Nationals beat the Orioles 3-1.

Here's a shot of the Beer Guy

Here's a shot of the photo guy...

And here's a shot of the tourist guys, my snowbird buddy on the left and some other guy.

And a good time was had by the tourist guys for a grand total of $14 each. Geez, that's about half as much as the t-shirt I bought!

So when it comes to the Grapefruit League Spring Training? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt! (C'mon, you musta seen that comin',)

30 Days of Photos III #4 Sour

Check out Ziva's Inferno for the rest of today's photos.

My Back Pages - November

I know, I know, I know I should have reported in before now. But sometimes real life just gets in the way. I attempted 5 books in November. I say attempted because I slapped a big DNF (did not finish) on Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I just can't seem to get into this guy. It's the second or third of his I've given up on, Not so the other four, starting with a biography of Stephen Stills called Change Partners. This followed by a hilarious biography of the guy responsible for National Lampoon called A Stupid and Futile Gesture - How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever. I ended the month reading yet another biography, this one of the man behind Rolling Stone magazine,. It was called Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine. A fascinating read. So last month I hit the magic number 50 I'd imagined for myself back in January. If I roll this month into my yearly total I'm at 54 books. And I still hav...

30 Days of Writing - Day #1 - Cheese

Well, here we go again folks. As if it weren't enough that I knocked myself out in April participating in 30 Days of Photos, now dear Nicky and Mike over at We Work For Cheese have corralled a bunch of us suckers into a 30 Days of Writing exercise. Yeah, I know. I must have stupid written backwards on my forehead. I don't know how they figured it out. They would have had to look in my mirror to realize it. Anyhoo, the first day's theme is - surprise, surprise - cheese. And here are the internet imbeciles Nicky and Mike managed to sucker into to this little exercise: Well, first off there's me! Once you've read my post you can visit: Mike and Nicky , Cheryl , If I Were God , Katherine , Laughing Mom , Linda M , Malisa , MikeWJ , Sandra , Leeuna and Still Unfinished . Okay, who cut the cheese? Well growing up in my house it was usually my mother. She prepared and served the food and the knife ...

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