The Phillies and the Blue Jays left it at a tie yesterday, 4-4
You have to wonder if Spring Training baseball is the way baseball was meant to be. What do I mean by that, you are wondering.
Take the fan interaction with the players, it’s so personal. Here are all the heroes of the baseball diamond and suddenly they’re not in these big hulking stadiums that dot the country but right up and personal and signing autographs, and usually smiling and having a great time.
The coziness of these Spring Training homes for teams are another reason baseball seems so much better in the Spring time. Smaller yet very fan friendly venues (that seem to keep growing by the year) are the norm in places like Florida and Arizona.
It’s only Spring training, but for the players there, this is a dream for them to even be there with a major league club, and for some, this is as close to a Major League playing field they will ever be. Imagine the thousands of minor league players that have never even been invited to participate with the big club in Spring.
Players on the field are trying to impress and earn themselves a spot on a big league roster, sometimes the difference between travelling up to the big league park and back to a minor league park is decided by their performance in March.
Then there is the wild numbers that we see the players wearing on the field. Numbers like, 71, 76, 67, things like that you hardly ever see when baseball starts up for real in April.
Today for the Phillies, it’s two different Split Squad games, vs. the Astros and Yankees.