Little Fenway beckons

On a breezy, sunny early March afternoon, I find myself enjoying a little slice of baseball heaven. Spring baseball in Florida, also known as the exhibition season,  gives a gently joyful experience to all who visit. Today I am watching the Boston Red Sox at their spring home in Ft Myers Florida. Their nominal opponent is the Baltimore team.

But there is a softened edge to the contest itself. This is spring baseball.

The crowd is energetic but not raucous. Ballpark employees are extra-helpful, smiling and courteous. In spring baseball, there’s a definite ease to the setting.

Sure, some of these players are feeling pressure to perform well enough to make the team. A few veterans are likely fighting for their jobs and the manager may be nervously looking ahead to the season’s start — it’s only three weeks away. But none of that is readily apparent to the casual fan, of whom I am one. What we experience is pure delight to our senses—all five of our senses if we enjoy a ballpark hot dog (mandatory in my view) along with the sights, sounds, smells and the very feel of this game of baseball.

The Gulf Coast spring sky on this day is a cloudless bright blue, offering gentle breezes and soft sunshine. Idle chatter of the fans is interrupted sporadically by their loud reaction to a sharp crack of the bat or a nimble play in the field. Like many baseball games, it seems many fans are not paying close attention to the pitch-by pitch proceedings. Here at Little Fenway, you hear more than a few Boston accents, folks representing the home city on a baseball vacation, or relocated here permanently.

JetBlue ballpark is a shiny structure of futuristic design sitting southeast of Ft Myers in south Florida. It opened in 2012, built for $77 million,  which includes 6 practice fields adjacent to the stadium. The access from the highway is so easy—and parking is free! The glossy exterior of this still-new stadium gives way to a delightfully nostalgic playing field which is modeled to mimic Fenway Park in Boston, the oldest stadium in Major League Baseball. There is the familiar asymmetrical outfield wall in deep center field, yielding to the Green Monster, the legendary short-but-high left field wall.

A glance at the distinctive layout of this playing field reminds us of the quaint quirkiness of baseball–it’s the only major sport without fixed specifications for dimensions of the field of play. JetBlue Park is a fine example.

A post-performance interview with today’s Boston starting pitcher Clay Buchholz sheds a little light on his day’s work. He didn’t make it past the second inning, had poor control and gave up several hits. By regular season standards, that’s a terrible day. Mr. Buchholz, however, is utterly unconcerned. “It’s still early spring and I was working on my change-up and they just got some good swings on me”, he said. And then this. “But overall, I feel really good.”

And why not? Why shouldn’t he feel good? We all feel really good.

It’s a beautiful spring day in Florida and we’re at a baseball game. The mood is light. Optimism reigns. The real season doesn’t even start for another three weeks. We feel good! It’s Spring baseball.