Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 8 years old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

My brother and I had to take another break from our annual trip out west to the Cactus League for Spring Training. Since I was “stuck” at home and my daughter was on spring break, I took a few days off and the two of us went to a few local Grapefruit League games instead.

Yesterday afternoon we drove up to Dunedin, the location of Florida Auto Exchange Stadium, spring home of the Toronto Blue Jays. This is one of the smallest parks in the Grapefruit League, seating just 5,500 (and it was a Thursday afternoon, so attendance was sparse). We didn’t have a favorite team to cheer for so we sided with the home team Blue Jays, who beat the Orioles 6-4. After the game, we drove over to Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, spring home of the New York Yankees. It was thundering and threatening to rain, but we got lucky and the bad weather stayed away. It was a beautiful night for baseball, especially since the Rays beat the Yankees 6-2 and there were fireworks after the game. A perfect day/night double-header.

Friday we drove down to Port Charlotte Sports Park, spring training home of our local Tampa Bay Rays, to watch the Rays take on the Minnesota Twins. This was the first time we’d been to the Rays “new” facility since they moved from St. Pete in 2009. It’s a pretty nice facility but today the Rays lost, 6-1.

Next March it should be back to Arizona …