2008 Wrap Up

This blog will likely remain dormant until early 2009, so I'll finish up like I did last year with the best of the best. Luckily this year I don't have a lost baseball glove to gripe about.

Best Food:

Competitors this year included the regulars in Sonic and Checkers, but new specialized entries like the Beer/Cheese Dip at the Dunedin Brewery and the Beef Quesadillas at Casa Tina's made a great first impression. It would be easy for me to give the award to the excellent Memphis Style ribs at Brady's, but I think the Red Garlic Potatoes were more of a pleasant surprise and unable to be repeated around here.

Favorite Spring Training Park:

Last year I characterized the Jays operation as commercial compared to the Rays. After experiencing Brighthouse Field's $7 parking, $20 regular seats (we paid $10 to sit in the grass), and incessant plugs for Frenchy's and the Tilted Kilt (TIT KILT!!!!), Dunedin wasn't just pleasant, it was delightfully different. However, I still have to characterize Al Lang Field as the undisputed winner. As the Rays will move their training grounds to Port Charlotte next year, Al Lang will likely never again be used for this purpose. A shame really, the atmosphere there is excellent and the intimacy with the grass berm/bullpen arrangement is hard to match.

Ironman Award:

Since I didn't see three distinct Jay events this year, I have to give the award to the Blue Jay who simply logged the most at-bats and by extension played the most innings. That players this year would be Alex Rios, whose 6 at-bats earned him the crown. Alex made up for hogging rightfield by getting exactly 0 hits and leaving 3 men on base.

Pitching Award:

Dustin McGowan and Casey Janssen looked good on Saturday for Toronto, but the most dominant performance was turned in by Rick Porcello of the Detroit Tigers. Many Tigers fans were in attendance Friday and the ones closest to us were very excited at the chance to see Porcello. Why you ask? The Detroit Free Press calls the first round draft pick from '07 an uber prospect. Porcello was dominant in 2 innings of work, totally embarassing real major leaguers like David Eckstein, Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, and Frank Thomas.

Hitting Award:

Lyle Overbay and Joe Inglett were the only Jays to record two hits over the weekend, but the real story came from Pirates camp. Tampa Bay castoff Josh Wilson whose number 83 jersey more resembled a non-roster invitee than the actual non-roster player who took his original number from him (Doug Mientkiewicz and #16), went 2-3 with 3 RBI, a run scored, and a double. All of this came out of the #9 hole in the order.

Best Photograph:

This year the best photography was not generally the result of a picturesque spring training scene or a well timed close-up. Some of Tia's best shots were of wildlife encountered on the nature trail or on the pier. For its elusiveness and rarity, the Armadillo is the winner. Honestly, how often are you walking along when you encounter an armadillo foraging for grubs under the floor of the Floridian forest.

All of our pictures can be found in my Flickr archive. Tune back in next year!

Tampa Bay 5, Toronto 2

On Saturday we got part of the city experience that we prefer in beautiful downtown St. Petersburg as we said goodbye to beautiful Al Lang Stadium which will no longer be used for Rays spring training and is being proposed as the site of a new major league park to help anchor a lively and walkable downtown. Unfortunately we had to leave straight from the ballgame to return the rental car and catch our flight so we didn't get to sample the restaurants/night life in the area, but it is pretty apparent that it is significant.

During the mid-morning, after checking out and leaving Clearwater, we found ourselves at the St. Peterburg Saturday Morning Market on Central Avenue in the heart of downtown. We also stopped over at Williams Park for the more artistically inclined segment of the market. While in the market, Tia bought some photography while I picked up a Mot-sa-pie in an effort to stuff myself (we had sonic for "breakfast") and not buy ballpark food. According to the market website, a Motsapie is a variation of a hispanic classic, mozzarella cheese melted in between corn meal pancakes. They offered to top it with powdered sugar which I respectfully declined, though it sounds interesting.

The game itself was another washout if you were a Jays fan. Multiple improbable double plays snuffed out promising rallies while one bad inning erased the two run lead they managed to scrape together. Toronto largely brought its bench players down the Pinellas Trail to take on Tampa Bay. Starters Reed Johnson (pictured, about to foul out to 1st base), Alex Rios, and Aaron Hill were in the starting lineup, but the remainder of the lineup included Shannon Stewart (who bloodied a lady with his bat), Marco Scutaro, Rod Barajas, Russ Adams, John McDonald, and Curtis Thigpen. Reserves who entered the game included Matt Watson, Adam Lind, Sergio Santos, Brian Jeroloman, Ryan Patterson, Robinzon Diaz, Joe Inglett, Pedro Lopez, and Chip Cannon.

Dustin McGowan started and pitched two scoreless frames. Casey Janssen repeated the feat before John Parrish slung a scoreless fifth. Young Ryan Ketchner was overwhelmed in the 6th, allowing back to back triples to Evan Longoria and Ben Zobrist that really broke the game open. Jean Machi and Jesse Carlson rounded out the list of Toronto hurlers.

Toronto only managed 9 base hits, and a couple were circumstantial infield hits by Adams and McDonald (pictured about to make contact on said infield hit). It is in front of this backdrop that sparkplug second baseman Joe Inglett, most recently of Torey Lovullo's Buffalo Bisons, led the Jays with two hits. In 3 spring training games, Toronto has scored a whopping four runs.

On the way back to the airport we picked up one last chili cheeseburger at Checkers and slowed down to get around two different fresh auto accidents, one of which occured on the Howard Franklin/I-275 Bridge across the bay. Talk about a tight ass moment! The flight back was delayed mid-air due to traffic at JFK and we completed three circles around Atlantic City, NJ before landing about 20 minutes late, just in time to get to the gate for our short jump to Rochester.

That's it for this year with the spring training game stories/travel log. I will be posting a wrap-up/awards post sometime Monday or Tuesday. I'll finish by giving credit to the Tampa Bay fans in attendance, many of whom are likely the regular season crowd. They were by far the most vocal and took the game very seriously, even in the late innings, though the Tiger contingent who traveled to Dunedin was also impressive.