This Will Get Baseball Fans Through the Next Month -1

1/26/2014

Al Lang Field, St. Petersburg, 1957

Craig N. Oren

1/26/2014 02:47:27 am

So that must be the Yankees' camp. I believe the Yankees stayed there for only a few more years, then moved to Fort Lauderdale. I've heard that black players more more welcome in Fort Lauderdale. Remember the old motto: in Florida, if you want to go north, go south.

George Vecsey

1/26/2014 04:57:21 am

Correct. Yanks moved in 1962, bought into a motel on A1A in Fort Laud..The Yankee Clipper. I used to hang out with my friends Bill Robinson and Ruben Amaro there. Black Cardinals were living in private homes until Bill White and Gibson shamed Busch to buy a motel near the Skyway The Mets had their players in the Colonial Inn out in St. Pete Beach. GV

Ed Martin

1/26/2014 07:54:53 am

My baseball-loving friends here love McKechnie Field in Bradenton, home of the Pirates and a minor league offspring. It was first built in 1923 (renovation 1993- I think) and has that old steel pillars look. Sarasota has the Reds in a nice layout. VHS, a perennial power is already swinging bats.

Meanwhile long- range weather says cold and maybe snow, but no blizzard in Joisey, but I am hoping for a blizzard which will initiate "the Vecsey Curse" a critical event in NFL history!

George Vecsey

1/26/2014 09:49:45 am

Ed, thanks for remembering. I really did predict -- more accurately, I called in -- a blizzard for this Sunday. Right now it looks like a mix of rain and snow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/sports/football/28vescey.html?_r=0

I remember McKechnie Field (I remember McKechnie!)
In 1980, I went into the Pirates' clubhouse before the game, and when I came out, still batting practice, I saw my 11-year-old son playing pepper, on the field, in deep LF with one of the Pirates. Later, I asked him how he got on the field. "He asked me if I wanted to," my son said. That was spring training, back then.
GV

1/26/2014 10:08:31 am

E1-- Reds gone from Sarasota Ed Smith Field. Now home of Orioles from Balmer.

Bill McKechnie trivia: as manager uniquely won world series with two different teams, pennants with three (tied with one other manager). Love the story about your son. Those were the good old days.

George Vecsey

1/27/2014 12:48:40 am

Now that I think about it, it was one of the visiting KC Royals in deep LF.
This is how informal spring training used to be. After the game, Bill Robinson invited my son into the clubhouse for a few minutes. Bill Madlock and Dave Parker came out of the shower, wearing only bling, and having a very scatological conversation. Bill, a very straight guy, said, "Uh, David, I think maybe we should go outside." Spring training is locked down these days. But the good news is that it is coming soon. Hang in there. GV

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This Will Get Baseball Fans Through the Next Month -1

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