Spring Training 2015: Day 2

closeHey, just so you know ... this post is now about 9 years old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

Day/night double header!

It was a long day yesterday for all of us, but the late (early) night and even climbing Camelback Mountain didn’t stop my brother from getting up early and going for a 14-mile run (marathon training!) while my sister and I slept in. By the time we were all up and showered and ready for breakfast, it was past 11am. We ended up at a Paradise Cafe down the street from our hotel, and were surprised to learn it was actually owned by Panera! Pretty funny since I had always described it as “Panera, but with waffles” since our first trip to Arizona in 2009 but never made the connection.

After breakfast we drove to the northeast corner of the valley to Surprise Stadium, spring home of the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals. We arrived around 12:30pm and were pleasantly surprised (see what I did there? 😀 ) at the free parking. It was a beautiful afternoon for baseball, watching the Seattle Mariners take on the Rangers (and the occasional military jets flying over from nearby Luke Air Force Base). Since our Indians weren’t playing and my sister now lives in Seattle, we were cheering for the Mariners. The game ended in a rare spring training tie, 4-4, in the 9th inning.

We hopped back in the car and drove south on Loop 303 to Goodyear Ballpark for the second game of our day/night double-header and our first Indians home game of the trip. It was a record-setting crowd of 11,549 and Indians manager Terry Francona‘s dad, the legendary Tito Francona, was sitting a few rows in front of us. There’s nothing better than a beautiful Friday evening spring training baseball game with fireworks afterwards … even though the Tribe lost to the Los Angeles Angels 11-5. On top of that, my Dayton Flyers beat Providence in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the only lower seed to win today, and advance to the round of 32 on Sunday against Oklahoma.

 

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