The problem with starting the baseball season in March is that we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had enough time to digest spring training.\u00c2\u00a0 Or at least, to write about it.<\/p>\n
I spent the final weekend of spring play in Arizona and caught games at Camelback Ranch \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the home of the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Hohokam Park \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is the winter home of the Chicago Cubs \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and at Goodyear Ballpark \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is shared during spring by the Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds.\u00c2\u00a0 The level of play was adequate at best but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d gladly trade a few fielding errors and mental miscues for the one thing that spring training pretty much guarantees and the regular season does not: good weather.<\/p>\n
Every game I saw in Arizona was either completely bathed in 75-degree sunshine or started that way before giving way to a cool, peaceful desert night.\u00c2\u00a0 In short, it was baseball weather.\u00c2\u00a0 Just as football should always be played with a nip in the air, baseball exists to be played under clear skies in weather that welcomes us, not assaults us.\u00c2\u00a0 Alas, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to be now that the games are being played for real as cold, rain and even snow are in the forecast as baseball says goodbye to spring and hello to winter.<\/p>\n
Baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s regular season should never start in March and probably shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t begin until the middle of April.\u00c2\u00a0 Early season games should be concentrated as much as possible in warm weather cities and in domed stadiums and each future major league ballpark should have a mandatory retractable roof.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a rule that should have been put in 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
There should be more doubleheaders in the warm months as well so that the season starts later and ends before October.\u00c2\u00a0 Baseball should never be played in November.\u00c2\u00a0 Why? \u00c2\u00a0Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what it was like in the old days?\u00c2\u00a0 No.\u00c2\u00a0 The old days weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so great.\u00c2\u00a0 Baseball shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be played in March or November because the game is just better in warmer weather.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it.<\/p>\n
The best part about seeing games in spring training \u00e2\u20ac\u201c besides the weather \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is the optimism and the unknown.\u00c2\u00a0 The White Sox looked good in the one game I saw them play but one game in spring is not a bellwether for a 162-game season despite the fact that Adam Dunn hit a home run so far at Camelback it was as if the ball were sent back through time.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cubs looked bad in their two games I saw, (really bad) and I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go so far as to say there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a snowball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chance in hell that the Cubs will win the World Series this year but I do feel secure in saying that snowballs will be seen at Wrigley Field before Memorial Day.<\/p>\n
The footlong, one-pound hot dogs at Hohokam are to die for.\u00c2\u00a0 And I almost died waiting for mine.\u00c2\u00a0 Service at Phoenix-area ballparks is velocity-challenged at best.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as if someone told all the concession workers that baseball is meant to be played at a slow pace and so if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible to handle someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s order in one minute why not make it ten?\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not trying to be cruel.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of the concession workers appear to have been volunteers raising money for various charitable groups and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d certainly rather have my money go to a worthy cause than get my footlong in a timely fashion but I only say that now.\u00c2\u00a0 At the time I was ready to push down children to get that hot dog in my hands and nearly did exactly that as I reluctantly, very reluctantly, made certain that my nephews had their hot dogs in hand before I devoured mine with the desperation of Alfonso Soriano looking for a fly ball lost in the sun.<\/p>\n
My nephews and I inhaled our footlong hot dogs just moments after getting an autograph from Cubs Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good thing because if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d tried to smile around Fergie after quickly eating one pound of pork product it could have been ugly.\u00c2\u00a0 It could have been criminal.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching the Cubs get slapped around by the Colorado Rockies that day made the footlongs even more difficult to digest.\u00c2\u00a0 Luckily the best play, by far, in the game was made right in front of us and I mean right<\/em> in front of us.\u00c2\u00a0 Our group was seated about 40 rows directly behind home plate and a screaming foul ball came off someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bat early in the game and right toward us when the coolest guy in the world came to the rescue.\u00c2\u00a0 The guy was wearing sunglasses and looked a little bit like Dennis Quaid (seriously) and casually reached up with his left hand and caught the screaming liner barehanded without flinching, standing up or screaming for Mommy.\u00c2\u00a0 And he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t spill a drop of the beer that he was holding in his other hand.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, in a move that proved this guy was not only Fonzie but also Tom Hanks, he handed the ball to a little kid sitting in the row in front of him.\u00c2\u00a0 This was the coolest person to ever live and he was sitting near us at a Cubs-Rockies spring training game.\u00c2\u00a0 I should have asked for his autograph.\u00c2\u00a0 I should have bought him a footlong.<\/p>\n The footlong hot dogs at Hohokam receive competition from the Island noodles served at both Camelback and Goodyear.\u00c2\u00a0 What are Island noodles?\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re Asian noodles stir fried and served with chicken and vegetables and, if you have even ten-percent of the guts as the guy who caught the foul ball at Hohokam, you smother the whole thing in hot sauce which makes you sweat and perhaps hallucinate while you eat them.\u00c2\u00a0 This is America.\u00c2\u00a0 This is baseball.<\/p>\n There was a contingent from the Cincinnati Reds staying at our hotel in Avondale which was nestled in a patch of desert that served as home to a great deal of heat and at least one jackrabbit. \u00c2\u00a0I was hoping to see Dusty Baker or Joey Votto hanging out by the pool or perhaps strutting down the hall with a bucket of ice but had no such luck.\u00c2\u00a0 The Reds players staying with us were young and unfamiliar and appear to have been rookies with little chance of heading north which I guess says something about our hotel.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, it was a very nice hotel which countered the desert\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ferocity by always having cold, fruit-filled water ready in the lobby and they also put out cookies each evening.\u00c2\u00a0 Baseball isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t about baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 Baseball is about food.\u00c2\u00a0 And then baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh yeah, baseball isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t <\/em>about low-brow bumper stickers either (as if there are high-brow bumper stickers) but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fail to mention the one we saw on our way to the airport: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cash, Ass or Grass \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Nobody Rides For Free.<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe that has nothing to do with baseball but it could serve as a sad, often accurate slogan for life.<\/p>\n Spring training\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great lesson is that no matter what you eat or who you root for this is a time to be optimistic if not downright melioristic.\u00c2\u00a0 If a stranger in shades can make an amazing catch, if I can eat a footlong in nine seconds then anything can happen.\u00c2\u00a0 This could be the year the White Sox finally recapture the esprit de corps of 2005.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe someone will finally hit .400.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be so cold.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spring and all things dwell in the house of the possible.\u00c2\u00a0 One joins with many in the desert\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shadow and sees nothing but green fields and happy days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The problem with starting the baseball season in March is that we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had enough time to digest spring training.\u00c2\u00a0 Or at least, to write about it. I spent the final weekend of spring play in Arizona and caught games at Camelback Ranch \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the home of the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":768,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[514,14083,506,759,810,760,14087,14086,14082,4790,10974,14081,6113,60,14088,14084,11680,3316,14085,507,14089],"class_list":["post-13213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-baseball-season","tag-baseball-weather","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cleveland-indians","tag-cold-rain","tag-desert-night","tag-domed-stadiums","tag-future-major-league","tag-good-weather","tag-hohokam-park","tag-league-ballpark","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-miscues","tag-nip-in-the-air","tag-season-games","tag-warm-weather","tag-weather-cities","tag-winter-baseball","tag-winter-march"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t