The Rites of Spring (Training)

I went to a backyard barbeque over the weekend and a major league baseball game broke out. Welcome to the Cactus League, aka the “Other Spring Training”.

Having grown up in New England, where the date that ”pitchers and catchers report” is a minor holiday, I had always longed to experience Spring Training for myself. As dispatches wafted their way north from exotic places like Winter Haven, Bradenton and Kissimmee I imagined myself sprawled out in sun-kissed splendor with other baseball fans. We’d trade stats and stories, interrupted only by occasional banter with up-and-coming young players working on a dream. It would be blissful.

Later in life I moved to Florida, and actually attended a few Grapefruit League games. There was no bliss. No banter. And only a limited amount of sun-kissed splendor that was not accompanied by either humidity or stiff, chilly winds. There were however, a lot of cranky septuagenarians who were miffed by the increase in tourist traffic. Spring Training lost its allure.

Recently though, the combination of a rainy Los Angeles winter and a budding case of Halo Fever made me decide that it was time to venture back into the fray. The Bird is always up for a road trip involving prickly pear margaritas, and so it was that we headed to Phoenix for a Spring Training weekend.

As we approached Phoenix Municipal Stadium for our game between the Angels and the Oakland A’s, the unmistakable sight of tailgating should have tipped me off – this Cactus League thing is an entirely different species of Spring Training baseball. Smiling faces greeted us in the parking lot and at the front gate. All around us the crowd was upbeat and diverse. It was 74 degrees and brilliantly sunny, with a hint of a breeze. There was a decided hum in the air. This was the Spring Training recruiting brochure that I had conjured up as a snow-bound New Englander.

Although it was technically a home game for the A’s, the crowd consisted of almost as many Angels fans. And tossed into the visual mix was a healthy sprinkling of shirts and hats bearing the logos of the Cubs, the White Sox, the Giants, the Reds…and well, pretty much every team that calls Arizona their Spring Training home. It was like a political convention – without the nasty name-calling.

In conversing with the people that were seated around us we learned that it was tradition in Phoenix for both visitors and residents to try and attend a game at as many different stadiums as possible. Kind of like bar-hopping with a warning track. In fact, we had been befriended in the parking lot by an attractive young woman who had met a group of people at a game in another stadium the day before and was subsequently joining them for today’s game. “Does this stadium have lawn seating?” she asked us. “I don’t know whether to bring my blanket in or not.”

I had purchased our tickets in advance, taking advantage of the low Spring Training prices to secure great seats about twenty rows behind home plate. The only snag was that an overhang above our section destined us to be sheltered from the sun for the entire afternoon. It became necessarily to activate our Voluntary Upgrade Program membership.

The VUP boasts members from all walks of life, and stretches from coast-to-coast and border-to-border. It’s Mission Statement reads simply “To Enhance The Viewing Experience”, and its Vision pictures every VUP member sitting in the best possible unoccupied seat in the house by the end of the game they are attending. Membership is free. The only associated costs are measured in Embarrassment Units, which are accrued when the VUP member discovers that the seat to which they have upgraded is not exactly “unoccupied”. Fittingly, the organization’s logo is a silhouette of an usher with their head turned the other way. 

I have been a card-carrying VUP member for so long I’m sure I must be coming up on Lifetime Achievement status. But on this day in Phoenix I was presented with a conundrum – is it appropriate to activate VUP membership in order to downgrade from box seats (with cup holders, no less!) to aluminum benches? After some consideration we reasoned that sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and despite the risk to our VUP standing we headed out into the sunshine of the cheap seats.

It was like moving into a neighborhood depicted in beer commercials, full of smart and funny people watching sports together. And friendly? If it had been a double-header, Bird and I would have no doubt ended up as somebody’s Godparents. Not only that, but since the A’s bullpen was located an arm’s length from the railing of our adopted section, there were, dare I say…Banter Opportunities. Hell, even the umpires came over to kabitz in between innings!

It was in this idyllic vision from my youth that we reveled for the remainder of the game, joking with newfound friends and listening to the P.A. announcer welcome all of the groups that had chosen to make a day of it at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. A bachelorette party…an office outing…a veteran’s reunion…a get-together of the Phoenix chapter of Red Sox Nation…screeeeeetch. The WHAT?!?

From every corner of the stadium a lengthy chorus of lusty boos rang out, loud enough for even the players on the field to take notice and hide a smile behind their glove. 

Hey, the Cactus League may be laid-back, but we still have our standards of fandom.