Spring Break on a Lawn

Spring break in college seems to have a different feel to it. Here is this glorious week in the middle of the semester where you can do anything that you want. While many went to Mexico, California, Vegas, or on any sort of adventure with classmates, I decided I would rather spend a week sprawled out on a lawn soaking up skin cancer with several sweat drenched (often shirtless and unbelievably hairy) strangers and a grossly over-priced hot dog.


Yup. Spring training, the sole reason why they gave us spring break in the first place.



First game on the list was a Mariners and Royals team in Peoria. My pal Scotty and I slipped away from the grips of NAU and drove down the hill just in time. We instantly stripped off the beanies and shoes and absorbed every bit of the old familiar Valley of the Sun.



And of course I got to see my favorite Jap, Ichiro Suzuki, in action. Look at him go.



The very next day it was off to Surprise to see the Royals and D-Backs (and their brand new oh-so-original red, excuse me, Sedona red, and black uniforms). Unfortunately, getting tickets wasn't as easy as we thought. We just so happened to come to the smallest spring training stadium in Arizona on, of all days, little league day. All those little t-ballers had filled every seat including the entire lawn. Luckily for us though, we shmoozled one of the workers and she ended up telling us that there were some bleacher seats half off that had just opened up that nobody knew about yet. Of course we still sat in the lawn, I mean, who in their right mind would go to a spring training game and not sit in the lawn?



The next day I continued the unfinished journey back home to Mesa.




And not even 24 hours later, I was at yet another spring training game. This time it was the Cubs and the Mariners. And I will probably never do that again. When they say Cubs fans are unique, they really aren't kidding.


The end of the break neared and I just had to fit in one more game before I returned to the mountains. So off I went again to see two great teams contend in spring training game #4, the Padres and A's. After that, I packed my things and returned to a very baseball-less NAU.


But that's all ok. Because, whether it's:

trading your flip-flops for sunburned feet,


watching one of your favorite players come up to bat while your team is losing by an embarrassingly large margin,

scouting out that closer you just drafted onto your fantasy team,


or watching completely wasted Cubs fans all the way from Chicago in bikinis make total fools of themselves,

we all know that the sky is always bluer at a spring training game.

So who needs those Mexican beaches when you can have spring training?