FORT MYERS, Fla. — Spring training returned right on time in mid-February. The Boys of Summer were back in town.
Aahhh, the familiar smell of popcorn and hot dogs wafted through the grandstands. Fans enjoyed some Buds with their buds and talked about their favorite players. Relaxed Red Sox players signed autographs and chatted with fans.
All that changed on March 12. That’s the day the commissioner shut down our National Pastime. Current score: coronavirus 1, […]
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Spring training returned right on time in mid-February. The Boys of Summer were back in town.
Aahhh, the familiar smell of popcorn and hot dogs wafted through the grandstands. Fans enjoyed some Buds with their buds and talked about their favorite players. Relaxed Red Sox players signed autographs and chatted with fans.
All that changed on March 12. That’s the day the commissioner shut down our National Pastime. Current score: coronavirus 1, baseball 0.
Here in Fort Myers and from Tampa to Tempe, there is crying in baseball. The gates were locked and the players were told to go home. Those same stands at JetBlue Park are now empty and aroma free. It’s a dark day in Florida and Arizona.
Players were told they could stick around and use the Sox training facilities. A day later, though, Major League Baseball switched gears and told most players to go home.
JetBlue Park was suddenly a ghost town. It’s March. There’s supposed to be the crack of the bat, not dead silence!
Every February and March since 1993, when the Red Sox moved to Fort Myers from Winter Haven, thousands of New Englanders have come here to watch their heroes. Many bought homes here — Florida is a tax friendly state and has no state income tax.
Snowbirds fly or drive to Lee County, which is halfway between Tampa and Miami on Florida’s west coast. It’s a place where nearly 700,000 people make their homes. About a quarter of a million of them are part-timers who escape the snow and ice for a few months.
It used to be you would rarely see a license plate from Massachusetts or Rhode Island or Maine, etc. When I first came here in 1987, most of the out-of-state plates were from Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. Not anymore.
The Red Sox are one of the most popular teams in Florida. Since moving to JetBlue in 2012, they have sold out every game — 135 in a row. Incredibly, since coming to Fort Myers in 1993, it’s been standing room only in all but one of the 249 home Grapefruit League games. They played for 18 years at City of Palms Park near downtown before moving 10 miles southeast into the new ballpark that was patterned after Fenway.
For a time it appeared that major league players might return to their spring training sites. Originally, MLB said there would be a two-week delay to opening the season. A few days later a new start date was announced — the second week of May. Realistically, no one has a clue when baseball will resume.
Spring training is a significant financial boost for Florida and Arizona. Each year fans head south and west, bringing fat wallets and families in tow. A recent study showed that baseball visitors to Fort Myers alone spent nearly $70 million on their spring training visits. In the survey, of nearly 1,200 of those questioned, 50 percent said their primary reason coming to Fort Myers was for spring training.
In other words, this area is taking a big financial hit since about half of the Grapefruit League schedule was canceled. People checked out early from their hotels, heading back to Pawtucket and Worcester and Hanover and all other parts of New England. Also gone from the area’s economy are meals eaten at restaurants, beers guzzled in pubs and all the other places vacationers spend their money.
Fort Myers is the most unique spring training city in baseball. There are actually four major league spring training parks here. The newest is JetBlue.
There is Hammond Stadium, about five miles west of JetBlue and home of the Minnesota Twins, who came to town in 1991. City of Palms was built for the Red Sox and opened in 1993. Today, it’s home to Florida Southwestern College’s baseball team.
And there is Terry Park on the east side of town. Built in the early 1920s, Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics trained there beginning in 1925. The Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals also trained there. This spring a Korean Baseball League team used the ballpark.
On the flip side of this national emergency, baseball fans have endured strikes, a canceled World Series, the Black Sox, cheating scandal, great teams, lousy teams.
Baseball will be back this year this (we hope), but probably not here at JetBlue Park.
