CLEARWATER, Fla. - The best part about spring training is the informality of it. The strict protocol and rules of the regular season are pushed aside explicitly for the regular season, but while in Clearwater for seven weeks in preparation for when the games really count, the Phillies have been pretty good about keeping it light and getting their work in.
Frankly, the best part about baseball is spring training. In the laidback atmosphere here in Florida, the players' and coaches' love of the game oozes like lava down the side of a volcano. For a change - at least when there are no cases for the arbitration panel to hear - baseball looks like a game. The corporatization of a simple ballgame takes a backseat until the scene moves north to the big, taxpayer subsidized stadiums.
Aside from getting in the work (who doesn't love watching players do their strides on the warning track while the game is still in progress), players experiment and try things they would never do in a real game. For instance, if Ryan Howard would have come to the plate with runners on second and third with two outs in the fourth inning of a regular-season game, he never would have taken the bat off his shoulder. He would have taken four pitches wide and outside and then trotted to first.
But in Clearwater against the Pirates on Thursday afternoon with runners on second and third and two outs, Howard got a fastball right down the pipe. Needless to say, the big fella knocked it over the berm ringing the ballpark beyond the outfield fence and into a pond just shy of the chain link fence separating the grounds of the park from southbound lanes of US-19.
Chances are the ball turned into a meal for an alligator.
The best part about the homer was that Howard talked to the scribes about it just a few innings later. No one had to wait until the end of the game because the clubhouse opens up for media access a few innings into the game so that the ballplayers can take care of the reporters before taking off for the day. Frankly, it's an odd thing being in the clubhouse while a game is in progress, just as it's a peculiar thing to watch the final innings of a game from foul territory in left field.
Do that during the regular season and it's off to the roundhouse.
Anyway, the proverbial book goes out the window at spring training. Instead it's a straight ahead, backyard game. Pitchers challenge hitters and hitters swing (or don't) at pitches they normally would not. That's because it's not about the stat numbers on the page, but instead it's about being able to play baseball.
And who can't appreciate that?
*** The Phillies will play a regular Grapefruit League game against the Pirates at Bradenton's McKechnie Field at 1 p.m. in front of paying customers featuring a majority of the players on the spring roster. However, the more interesting matchup will be the "B" game played at Pirate City located at 27th Street in Bradenton, which is where newly-named Opening Day starter Brett Myers will make his 2008 spring debut. Lefty reliever J.C. Romero is also scheduled to pitch in the "B" game.
Two players that will not make the trip to Bradenton are catcher Carlos Ruiz and shortstop Jimmy Rollins. Both players were given the day off, which, for Rollins means an early morning workout and then some relaxation at home for the rest of the day.
Rollins, needless to say, is pretty excited about the rare day off.
On another note, at his locker in the veterans' corner of the clubhouse in Bright House Field, Rollins proudly displayed the championship belt awarded to him as the team captain in the weekly bowling matchup against a team led by Ryan Howard and featuring bowlers Brett Myers and Shane Victorino. Apparently Rollins' team is such a juggernaut that Howard and his club were pleased that they pushed the best-of-3 series to the limit.
Afterwards, when asked whether the problem was the management as opposed to the bowling, Howard complained that the Philadelphia media was calling for his head.
"You lose one game and the Philly media tries to get you fired!" he yelled.
Hey, you can't fire the bowlers.