Fastballs, curveballs, sliders and … a pig? — The Shelter Island Reporter goes to Spring Training
Since the late 1990s, our family has spent time every winter in Dunedin, Florida, just north of Clearwater.
We usually stay in the same Holiday Inn, strategically located adjacent to the 40-mile-long Pinellas Recreation Trail and a short walk from the ballpark where the Toronto Blue Jays hold spring training. The fact that we have gone to the same place at the same time of year and done the same things (watch baseball and ride bikes) for over twenty-five years suggests that we are either people who avoid unnecessary adventure, or that we have the same sort of compulsion for seasonal migration as ospreys. (We do have other osprey habits, such as a diet of fish, and keeping a messy nest.)
The flight from New York to Tampa was delayed by a few hours, so we arrived in Dunedin at10pm on a Sunday night. Not only were all the restaurants closed, but Sarah, the bartender at the Irish pub next door to our hotel, was cleaning the taps and washing the dark wooden bar, having declared last call.
The merciful woman drew us two pints, which we drank in the company of someone who introduced himself as “the Food Dude,” and a baby-faced bartender who just got off work at a fancy place next door called the Lucky Lobster. With the Food Dude having closed his tacos truck, we learned that a pint of Guinness (low ABV and high calorie) can be a satisfying dinner and staggered back to the hotel.
With the Phillies set to play the Blue Jays at 1pm, the Monday morning breakfast room was populated by people from Northern climes, who were still transitioning to relaxation mode. Like me, they had spent the previous day traveling, only to wake up 50 degrees warmer and slathered with sunscreen ahead of a day at the ballpark.
I heard someone worried about home security ask her tablemate, “Did you set the cameras to notify?”
He responded by checking their house back in Toronto with an app on his phone.
I met a pig on my morning bike ride. He was roaming around the fenced-in yard of a house right next to the recreation trail, and when I saw a group of children feeding him, I decided to investigate. He was a pot-bellied pig, more pet than pork, and the kids at his gate informed me that he “seems to prefer crunchy things.”
He was charming, if a little smelly, and I went back to visit with him every day, although I did not feed him anything crunchy, and tried to stay upwind.
In my years hanging out with Blue Jays fans, many of whom are Canadian, I’ve found them to be reasonable people with a deserved reputation for niceness. Although the Jays made it to the postseason in ‘23 only to be humbled by Minnesota, the fans I spoke with seemed ready to forget it.
By the time Vladdy Guerrero cracked a home run 438 feet to center field in his first at bat, and Bo Bichette hit a two-run single in the 5th, it started to feel as if the Blue Jays were ready to reassert their position as one of the top teams in baseball. They won 5-2 over the Phillies.
“Somebody’s ready to swim!” said a charmed breakfast-room denizen as a woman and her four-year old daughter passed through the breakfast room on their way to the pool, clad in matching bathing suits, holding towels, drinks and flotation devices, and wearing dark glasses with sunflower frames.
“Oh yeah,” said Mom, “She’ll be in there for most of the next two weeks.”
On Friday’s the Yankees came to town, and fans on both sides were in for a treat. In spring training most road teams leave their regulars at home, bringing only the required two starters. (The story goes that the great Yankees closer, Mariano Rivera, was never issued a road jersey in spring training.) But on this day the Yankees brought their A-team, with stars Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo, DJ Lemahieu, and Gleyber Torres, their offseason acquisitions Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, and starting pitcher Marcus Stroman, a former Blue Jay.
Seated near us, two enthusiastic, atonal Yankees fans with very strong lungs shouted out Stroman’s off-speed pitches as filthy, and although they were surely correct about the deception of his sliders and curveballs, it was jarring to hear a fellow Long Island native painted with the same brush as my new friend, the pot-bellied pig.
The fans persisted through four innings, until Stroman was relieved by the current Yankees closer, Clay Holmes, who does own a road jersey.
The game was notable for the length of time the starters stayed in. Judge, Soto, and the rest got 4 at-bats and played seven full innings, unusual that early in the spring. The next day Judge was limited to two at bats before being shut down with an abs strain.
After the game I paid a brief visit to the pig, confirming that Stroman’s sinkers and the backyard pig’s pen were both filthy stuff in the best possible way.
