Pirates 6, Rays 5

Baseball broke out over at Charlotte County Stadium and Santini and I were there early enough to see some good Major League baseball and some early season screw-ups by the scrubs in the later innings. It is really too early in the year for a guy from the Saintly City in Minnesota to be watching outdoors baseball. There is just too much snow on the ground yet. But, with the miracle of jet travel, baseball was on the agenda. The Rays have a good baseball team. They won the American League East title last season and have added a couple of interesting players to try to win again: Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon to name two.

I took this photo from our seats in section 213 early in the game. The batter is 12 time All-Star Manny Ramirez in one of his three plate appearances today. He played left field and had two base hits. The pitched baseball is visible in the shot. Evan Longoria is the runner leading off first base.  We had pretty good seats to watch the game, and actually stayed for most of it.

This was taken late in the game from the first base side after we walked around the field for the second time. By this time the substitutions were coming fast and furious. Notice the moving baseball in this photo, too.  The Rays used nine pitchers in the nine inning game, for instance. It was the third game of spring training, so not unexpected.

It was a beautiful day. The temperature was 83 and the sky blue. And even though the soft drinks were $3.50 a bottle and the beer $5.75, the experience was positive. (Santini called those Disney World prices.)   I kept score through the first five innings until the card filled up with team substitutions and then I abandoned the process to view the game from other angles.

Another beautiful day in southwest Florida.