Free parking! Having experienced the Disney magic at nearby attractions, I can assure you that the Disney folks are not bashful at finding innovative ways of getting into your wallet. My ticket was the most expensive at $22.50, so I can’t believe free parking. At 16 home games times $10/car (I’ve paid $7 twice and where else can you park?) times several thousand cars is pushing a million bucks left on the table. The programs were priced at the usual $5, but used some kind of waxy paper that made it damn near impossible to keep score with a pencil. Perhaps I was supposed to buy a special Disney pen to keep score.
The facility is very attractive. Like Bright House Networks Field, it’s Spanish style architecture. Unlike any other spring training venue I’ve visited, it has a full upper deck from third base around to first base. Disney also has the only exploding scoreboard in spring training as well as the loudest and most annoying public address system. Apparently, this stadium is an example of “Build it and they will come.” The Disney folks built this place 10 years ago and lured the Braves here.
The Mets traveled from the east coast (Port St. Lucie) and packed the place. The attendance set a spring training record at 11,591. The facility only seats 9,500, so the rest were on the berm over the left field wall, where you could hardly see a blade of grass and standing room, which ringed the lower level from the first to third base side behind the lower deck seats.
The Devil Rays are going to play three regular season games here in May. April would have been a better choice since the oppressive summer heat will have probably settled in by May. The stadium is small by Major League standards, but since the D-Rays draw flies in
Stupidly, the stadium faces south-southeast. There’s all kind of land around here, so Disney could have oriented the stadium any way they wanted. Facing basically south, only the last three rows of the lower deck get any shade. My seat was 12 rows up just to the left of home plate. While there were some clouds, I didn’t think I could take facing the bright sun for the whole game and luckily found a vacant seat behind me after the first inning that put me in the shade from the waist up. Facing south, the sun line didn’t move the whole game, so I stayed partially in the sun. A couple of innings later, I noticed some bastard had moved into my vacant seat. I felt like going down and kicking the sumbitch out of there, but under the circumstances, it didn’t seem appropriate. The other major stadium design flaw is the men’s rooms. There are only two on the ground level and one has 4 urinals and the other 6. I’m surprised this meets the building codes.
The Braves wore dark blue, the Mets medium blue and the umps were in light blue, so who knows who was on what side. John Smoltz, who turns 40 in May, pitched six strong innings for the Braves, the longest outing of any pitcher I’ve seen to date. You’d think they’d give the guy a break and not wear him out in March. It was fun seeing Smoltz face 48 year old Julio Franco, who started at first base for the Mets. You won’t see too many older starting pitcher/batter matchups. Probably makes all the retirees feel good. According to the radar info posted on the scoreboard, Smoltz’s fastball was consistently in the 93-94 MPH range, so he can still bring it.
Braves win 7-1, breaking open a close game by scoring five off Mets’ closer Billy Wagner in the 7th. The decisive blow was a three run homer by Tony Pena.
Tomorrow, I stay close to home and go back to
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