Baseball in Viera–and the Nats Lose
We got an early start today and got over to the Nationals’ spring training site, Historic Space Coast Stadium in Viera, about a half an hour from our hotel in Melbourne. We thought we were early, but we were not at all the first ones there. Today being March 17, there was a St. Patrick’s Day thing going on–everybody (besides us) seemed to be wearing green. Even the teams wore green caps. We thought that looked pretty doofy, but I guess we were in the minority.
We hoped to see some of the major league players working out, and to maybe meet them and get some autographs. When we drove up at about 10:30 AM, the Nats were on practice field #5. By the time we got parked, the team had gone into the clubhouse. Bummer.
We were delighted, however, to note that the Nats have renamed that practice field in honor of their All-Star from last year, the National League Comeback Player of the year for 2007, Dmitri Young.
It really is true that you get closer to the players and personnel at spring training than you do at the stadium during the season. Even if you’re not there for the workouts or don’t have a press pass, the barriers between the players, managers, and executives are much less forbidding.
As we walked up toward the stadium and team store, we ran into pitcher Chris Schroeder, who had lagged behind the rest of the team going in. He nicely autographed a baseball for us, and then we saw pitcher Jason Bergmann coming out toward the practice field to do some running on the warning track. He signed a couple of baseballs for us as well.
Parked just next to the team store outside the stadium was a row of golf carts for manager Manny Acta and general manager Jim Bowden, I guess to make it easier for them to scoot from one side of the stadium to the practice fields or the minor league training site. It is a pretty big area, and you have to go across a large parking lot to get to the minor league camp, so I guess it’s worthwhile for the big guys to have their own (named) carts.
The game itself was not so great for the Nationals. Mike O’Connor was the starting pitcher, in what might have been a last shot at making the big-league rotation before the season starts. After a rough first inning in which he gave up a run, he held in there pretty well until the fifth, when he gave up another four runs. Three strikeouts, only one walk–but the Mets hit him all over the park.
And the Nats’ bats just could not get anything going until late in the game. Dmitri Young, in either his first or second start at first base, went 1 for 3 with a single that put him on base and in position to later score the Nats’ first run. Catcher Will Nieves and center fielder Justin Maxwell got important hits, and our favorite third baseman, Ryan Zimmerman, had an RBI single today as the designated hitter.
But as Barbara said, the Nats generally did not look as though they were having much fun. The final score, 7-3 Mets, seems to reflect that.
It’s cool to watch the players running drills after the game. We couldn’t figure out exactly who was in on this. It wasn’t all the players who had played the game, and it included some people who didn’t play a minute–but it seems to be a regular thing: a few light runs, made all together in a group, about the length of a baseline.
Tomorrow we’re off to Lakeland, about two hours across the state, where the Detroit Tigers have had their spring training camp since the 1930s. The game is in Joker Marchant Stadium, which has been in Lakeland since 1965.