Spring is indeed sprung; the frost has been gone from the strawberries a few weeks, the Florida State Fair is in full swing and it looks like this part of our great state will escape the perils of extended freezing weather as we move ever closer to warmer times.

It is indeed the time for baseballs on bats, horsehide on leather, the pop of gloves during the pitcher’s tune up - it is spring training time - ready to open on all of our fronts soon.

Florida remains the spring training capital of our nation, even if Florida did lose the Cincinnati Reds when they chose Arizona for spring training prior to last season. We now have 15 teams still in our state and we can use more. Spring baseball is indeed a luxury and a commodity that is as native as citrus. It is very much a business of the state level in Florida to make every effort to keep baseball what it is in our state. The players like to come here, the managers like to come here, the fans like to come here. Generally, if a team moves from Florida it is because of a management decision—more money, better stadiums. Nothing supports major league baseball in training like our state but t is indeed an arena in which Florida needs help from the top.

Some of our spring training has already begun—like the Tampa Bay Rays in Port Charlotte - and we already receiving national attention because of that.

I mean, how great is it to watch baseball spring training as well as having it a financial plus to our state? Been here since Al Lang was a pup, with Al Lopez. Around the country writers want to come to Florida, not to Arizona, in the spring. A reason so very important is it there are so many teams here who play each other and give those writers more subjects. The annual Governor’s Baseball Dinner has stuck with Florida and I see no reason for it to change. It is great subject matter for columnists and feature writers. It has long been held in Tampa or St. Petersburg. The dinner has always been a fine platform for our governors to push their state and will be this year.

These dinners in the past have been sources for unusual stories. One I’ve always remembered was when a moving crew arrived while the dinner was going on who said they were there to get the prizes. No one objected, the crew took the prizes and absconded with them. They were never seen again. Other dinners have featured the governor of the state and his boosters. Some can trace their presence at these dinners to the days of Governor Fuller Warren. Most of the time they have always been held in Tampa, St. Pete and Lakeland. One such dinner was cut short when tragedy at the Sebring Road Race interfered as most of the newsmen headed for Sebring. Tampa Chamber Executive Director Ralph Chapman was long a booster of the dinner and saw that it had high standards. I remember one at which Dizzy and Daffy Dean were the speakers. Generally, there is a good mixture of representatives of all sports making this affair a long standing feature of the Tampa Sports calendar. Tampa and the Governor’s office might want to remember this just as the Governor’s office may want to pay close attention to the state of affairs of the spring training. In other days it always had the attention and caretaking of state level officials. We sure recommend that now if it can be done.

Missed deeply this year at the Governor’s dinner will be the absence of George M. Steinbrenner, a long supporter of the event. He spoke there and he often attended. Just recently a new full length statue of George was erected, as had previously been done at Yankee Stadium, in front of Steinbrenner Field on Dale Mabry, Tampa home of the Yankees. George will surely approve that salute from where he is viewing it now.

Babaloo!