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Spring Training 2020: Home and Recap

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I groggily awoke as we landed at the CLT airport around 6:10am. As luck would have it, my connection was just two gates away so I grabbed breakfast at Starbucks and did a little walking to get my step count up before boarding the flight to Tampa. By 10:30am I was back home, Cactus League Spring Training Trip #10 in the books.

It’s March 1 and my annual spring training is just ending (that’s just not right!). The Indians come to Tampa early in the season too this year (April). So after that, unless I go to the odd Rays game, that’s the end of live baseball for me in 2020! And having seen all Indians losses this trip, I hope to see a victory over the Rays when I go next month.

Another weird thing about going early: no NCAA basketball. That’s usually a staple for us, watching tournament games while out in the desert. But I don’t care about that because my #4 Dayton Flyers are undefeated in the Atlantic 10 and no doubt will be dancing later this month! Go Flyers!!

The Vegas side trip was a lot of run. Sure, it was a 485mi drive from Phoenix, but getting to check off another spring training ballpark and doing some hiking was worth it, despite our run-in with the LVPD on Friday night! 😀

Looking forward to the regular season now …

Spring Training 2020: Day 3

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Leap Day baseball!

We thought we would end up sleeping in this morning, with nothing to do until the baseball game at 1:05pm. But we were both up at 7:45am so I did some quick research and realized that Red Rock Canyon was only 20 minutes away. I had hiked in the canyon during my first trip to Vegas back in 2015 with college friends and since our annual spring training normally involves hiking and we hadn’t had a chance to do it back in Phoenix, we decided to drive out there before the game. We had breakfast at the hotel around 9:30am and checked on my brother’s progress in the Mississippi Blues Marathon (which is why he couldn’t come with us on the trip this year), and my niece’s solo and ensemble competition (which my other sister had flow back overnight for) before checking out of the hotel and getting back in the car.

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Spring Training 2020: Day 2

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Normally Day 2 would start with a morning hike one on the valley’s mountain trails, but our traditional routine is a little compressed this year due to my one sister’s short stay with us. Instead, we got up early (around 7:30am), had breakfast at the hotel (including leftover cowboy frybread from dinner last night, yum!), checked out, and drove to Goodyear to see the Indians’ morning practice.

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Spring Training 2020: Day 1

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It’s March February … time for baseball! After going to Arizona for my annual trip out to the Cactus League late in the spring training season for the past two years, this time I’m going early. The trip includes a Leap Day game in Las Vegas! New tech since my last trip includes a nice pair of noise-cancelling over-the-ear Bluetooth headphones and my Canon PowerShot SX740.

Despite growing fears around the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), including a case in Phoenix, I flew out to Sky Harbor airport early (5:30am) and lucked out that the only empty seat on the place was the middle seat next to me, nice! I landed at 9:45am MST and met my sisters who had both arrived earlier. This is my one sister’s first trip out with us so we’re looking forward to having her share in this annual tradition.

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Labor Day Weekend 2019 at Disney: Star Wars and Dorian

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With Hurricane Dorian threatening to cut across the state of Florida, we weren’t sure our annual Labor Day vacation to Walt Disney World was going to happen. But as it turned out the storm curved away, up the eastern coast of the state and stayed away from Orlando. As a result, we had a really nice weekend trip without a lot of crowds.

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Spring Training 2019: Home and Recap

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It was barely Sunday morning (3:00am) when we left the hotel and drove back to the rental car facility at Sky Harbor Airport. By 3:30am we had returned the car and were waiting for the airport shuttle to the terminal. People were lined up (as they should have) for the various shuttles to specific terminals (1-4) but it turned out there were only a few shuttles running and they were servicing all terminals. This caused some problems as people patiently waiting in the line for terminal 4 realized the bus kept stopping at the terminal 1 line and filling up quickly. We finally got onto a bus with other exasperated passengers.

At the Terminal 2 stop, my sister and I bid farewell to my brother (who was going on to the much nicer Terminal 4). The one benefit of the smaller (crappier) terminal, however, was the lack of lines. There were no lines to check our bags (Alaska for her, United for me) and we were the only two in the TSA PreCheck line (which amazingly was open at 4:00am). Unfortunately, once through security, nothing was open yet. I waited with my sister until she boarded her flight at 4:45am and then sat around for another 45 minutes before boarding my own flight to Houston. I landed in Houston around 11:00am and had a normal length layover before my connection home to Tampa. By 3:45pm I was back in my car and then home unpacking half an hour later. Another Arizona Spring Training trip in the books!

Final trip notes:

  • my favorite Indians player this spring was catcher Kevin Plawecki (who I kept calling “chrusciki“)
  • the home team of every game we saw was the winner; that made our trip record 3-1 (or 4-1 if you count the Cubs winning the day game on Friday)
  • opening day is this Thursday, March 28, a little earlier than usual
  • like last year, the Indians don’t come to Tampa until late in the season (Labor Day Weekend)

Spring Training 2019: Day 4

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Saturday morning of the Spring Training trip has certain traditions and we continued them this year.

First we woke up (relatively) early, drove over to Goodyear, and had breakfast at the Black Bear Diner. Then it was over to the Indians’ Player Development Complex to watch the morning warm-ups and practice at 9:00am. We were a little too early, as the inner gate didn’t open until 9:30am. This year, Rick Danburg seemed to be missing … there was no one talking to the crowd, giving out the day’s schedule, telling stories, etc. Everyone was just milling around waiting so I really missed his talks. We caught the occasional glimpse of a player in the weight room and also saw Terry Francona walk out to his car. The players didn’t actually come out to practice until around 10:40am, which seemed a lot later than in past years. We watched the warm-ups and then tried to shag some fly balls during batting practice (my brother and I came up empty, my sister got one though).

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Spring Training 2019: Day 3

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We got to sleep in this morning. Normally we have something planned every day, but since we added another day to the trip this year we had a leisurely Friday morning. After breakfast at the hotel, we hung out for a bit and watched some more March Madness NCAA tournament games (the three hour time difference with the east coast helped us there). Then it was time to head our for our day/night double-header!

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