PLAY BALL!

Jeff's spring training trip

Thurs., March 16

Wow, what a great night's sleep! At least 10 hours, sprawled across that big bed under the warm covers in a cold room, as I leave the air conditioning running 24/7 to keep the room nice and crisp.

After a free continental breakfast (why is it called that?) I was off on an hour-and-a-half drive to Bradenton, Florida to see my beloved Red Sox play a team I could care jacksquat about, the Pittsburgh Pirates.

	McKechnie Field in Bradenton, Fla., spring training home of the Pirates.

I finally found a couple of radio stations to keep my juices flowing, a Contemporary Christian one and a station playing some songs that one rarely hears back-to-back. Lou Bega's 1999 hit "Mambo No. 5" was followed by U2's "With or Without You," which preceded Gloria Gaynor's disco hit, "I Will Survive." Now, that's variety!

1:05 p.m. -- Game time! Today's seat was in the fourth row along left field, about midway between Boston's dugout and the outfield wall.

The wind was blowing hard, and straight out to left field, which meant a lot of long balls over the fence. Pittsburgh, after hitting only six home runs in their first 13 games of spring training, knocked seven against Boston. Routine pop-ups were carrying over the fence, and The Red Sox' outfielders were getting cricks in their necks from watching what might as well have been batting practice. Difficult to believe, but two days earlier six Red Sox pitchers combined to throw a perfect game against Tampa Bay.

Boston, by the way, only had one home run by a guy I've never even heard of named Alcantara. That's not to say there weren't plenty of runs, though, as the final score was Pittsburgh 14, Boston 11. Because of the offensive barrage, the game lasted an hour longer than the day before, clocking in at three hours, twelve minutes, which would be fairly normal if it were a regular season contest.

Although good defense was scarce (at least five errors, including a guy fall on his face running for a ball), I did witness a spectacular collision about 25 feet in front of my seat.

	Trainers check Cordova for boo-boos.

In pursuit of a shallow pop-up in shallow left in the fourth, Boston outfielder Marty Cordova and superstar shortstop Nomar Garciaparra ran into one another. Garciaparra's knee struck Cordova in the face and then the left side of his rib cage. Cordova lay on the ground for several minutes before being taken to the hospital for X-rays, which the paper says showed no breaks.

I feel sorry for Red Sox prospect Michael Coleman, playing centerfield against the Pirates. In the sixth inning he lost a ball in the sun only to see it drop two feet in front of his face, then two innings later a ball fell out of his glove in what should have been a routine fly ball. He was jeered so badly that two plays later when he caught a ball hit right at him, the crowd gave him a standing ovation.

MajorLeagueBaseball.com's analyst calls Coleman "possibly the best athlete in the Red Sox system...the 24-year-old is ready to play at the Major League level defensively." Not today he wasn't! It wasn't the least bit surprising to find out the next day that Coleman was sent back to the minor league training camp to spend time with the AAA Pawtucket squad.

	Mmmm..baseball...Red Sox...mmmm..

Now I know how interesting a crowd made up mainly of Yankees can be. In Atlanta, everyone would have shrugged it off, giving Coleman the benefit of the doubt.

I considered leaving during the seventh inning stretch to beat traffic. Then I thought, "Didn't you drive all this way to see baseball games? You don't leave early at home, why now on vacation? And why are you having a conversation with yourself?"

Besides, I was having just as good a time watching the dozen or so birds playing in the heavy winds. They would flap in place facing the wind, then stop to soar effortless in the wind. By the eighth inning or so, the birds were braver and began to circle the players' heads and tease the crowd.

4:15 p.m. -- My immediate goal following the game: Figure out how to get to my hotel, and find a sports bar/restaurant and watch the NCAA basketball tournament. I don't know the name of the place, but it was a cookie cutter establishment with memorabilia on the walls and even though the taste of the food is never that great it had plenty of TVs showing the games to keep the testosterone flowing and keep me happy.

Overnight I stayed at the Best Western Mirage in the heart of St. Petersburg. At least that what they said. Of course, I could have been in Orlando and if they told me I was in downtown St. Pete I would have believed them.

I want to discuss hotel showers now. Being six feet, four inches tall, I'm used to hotel showerheads being a neck level.

	The Best Western. Not a mirage.

This time, however, while the head was even with my neck, I couldn't raise it to spray above my stomach. Thus, my big belly is spiffy clean, but I almost had to get on my knees to wash my hair. Note to the grand poobahs of the hotel business: the U.S. is getting taller, start building your establishments to represent this progression, please.

Of course, the irony may be that I always say it doesn't matter where the shower points, as long as the water pressure is good. Well, the Best Western's shower had perhaps the best water pressure of any shower I've ever used, even if my bellybutton got the brunt of it.

There was a "threat" of rain all three days of my visit. At 8 p.m., for ten minutes it rained hard. Then God turned off the faucet. So, despite all the warnings, I never felt a drop of rain. I felt a drop of something at a ballgame, but that may have been somebody spilling their beer on my shirt. A few of those birds did seem to take a shine to my raw animal magnetism.