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Bob D’Angelo

Bob is a longtime member of the Florida sports media, having served as a reporter and copy editor for more than 30 years. His true sports passion, however, is the history of the various games, exhibited by his in-depth book reviews and hobby of collecting cards and other sports memorabilia. He blogs for TBO.com on both subjects, transferring his work for the Tampa Tribune to the realm of cyberspace.

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An Endearing Look At Spring Training

Posted Mar 12, 2009 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Mar 14, 2009 at 08:21 PM

We’ve heard all the cliches before about spring training. It’s a time for renewal. The grass is always greener, and hope springs eternal. Every team is capable of winning the World Series in March.

You know what? They aren't cliches. There is something leisurely and wonderful about spring training. It is an event to be savored, not rushed. Stories are trotted out, some old, some new, some embellished. But all are part of the thread that makes spring baseball so captivating.

Florida has been a major player in spring training for nearly a century, and Charles Fountain has captured its history and impact in "

Under The March Sun: The Story of Spring Training” (Oxford University Press, $24.95). Fountain takes a slow-paced, easy look at spring training, and brings up plenty of stories that will hit home for Tampa Bay area readers.

Chapters include the influence of St. Petersburg’s Al Lang in bringing spring baseball to stay in Florida, and the saga of Boardwalk and Baseball—a great idea that never made it. Fountain writes about the high expectations of Homestead, poised to lure the Cleveland Indians to southern Miami-Dade County. Those hopes were crushed when Hurricane Andrew stormed through the area in August 1992, demolishing the sports complex and forever changing the fortunes of Homestead.

There is the obligatory, and necessary, chapter on Dodgertown, a complex that “has a heritage that is matched only by its physical beauty.”

Dodgertown was the standard by which other spring training sites were measured, and few could touch it in its heyday. Anyone who has sat in the outfield berm or along the third-base foul lines (where else could one be right on top of the action?) can attest to that.

In addition to detailed research about Florida, Fountain also turns his attention to the burgeoning spring baseball sites in Arizona. The Cactus League has its own share of interesting stories, and Fountain does a nice job reporting them.

Fountain’s writing is leisurely and friendly. It’s the kind of book to take along to a spring training game, to read between innings—or, if you have a real short attention span during game, between pitches.

There are some mistakes. Fountain refers to Tampa’s old Floridan Hotel as the “Floridian.” It’s a mistake not unlike referring to the owner of the Arizona Cardinals as “Bidwell” instead of “Bidwill.” Oops, Fountain made that common error, too, on Page 195.

The book includes an appendix that lists the spring training sites for every major-league team. It is interesting to note, for example, that in 1902 the St. Louis Browns trained in French Lick, Ind. The only glaring error I saw in the appendix was mentioning that from 1964 to 1984 the Houston Astros trained in Cocoa Beach. It was in fact, Cocoa.

The mistakes are few and far between. This book is the perfect spring training companion. Take it with you to the berm at Lakeland’s Joker Marchant Stadium, or the newly built boardwalks in Port Charlotte, where the Rays currently train. Settle in and read a few chapters in ancient McKechnie Field in Bradenton, or at the spanking clean facilities at Disney or at Jupiter’s Roger Dean Stadium. It plays well at the Bright House complex in Clearwater or at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.

Pick any venue. It’s a great read at all of them.