Right now it’s mid-March, and I’m in Kissimmee, Florida, sitting in a really nice Starbucks. I’m outside on a roofed terrace, where there are wicker-y couches and tables, with a venti dark roast by my side. It’s five in the afternoon, warmly breezy; most of the rest of the country, including my home in Massachusetts, is colder than a banker’s heart.
I come to Florida every March to watch spring training baseball. Watching the beginnings of the Great American Pastime convinces me that winter’s back is broken; I often come to Kissimmee because two ball teams – the Braves and the Astros – train here. Today I watched the Houston Astros drop a tight one to the Washington Nationals, 4-3. One bit of personal excitement was that the Astros’ catcher, Jason Castro, was two years ahead of my son Sam at Stanford.
Even without that, it was a fun game to watch. There were a couple of home runs, two triples with the attendant speed on the basepaths, several double plays. You get the photo: a tight and energetic game played in bright sunshine and a warm wind blowing out.
Kissimmee itself is an interesting place. Founded early in Florida’s expansion in the mid-1800’s, its basis was water, or at least the getting rid of it, for a Philadelphia entrepreneur, Hamilton Disston, based his vast drainage operation of a whole lot of this swampy state right here. Kissimmee comes from a Native American word that means “long water”; and Mr. Disston was so successful at draining the long water throughout Florida that – according to Wikipedia – he became the largest single landowner in the United States.
The town’s historic district lies on the edge of Lake Tohoe. It’s sleepy and pleasant. Most of the action takes place out on Route 192, a long strip of motels, malls, restaurants, CVS’s, Publix supermarkets, and my own special Starbucks. At one end of this strip is the Osceola County Stadium, where the Astros play. The other end plows straight into the Magic Kingdom, home of the Mouse – and of the Wide World of Sports Complex, where the Atlanta Braves perform their own vernal preparation.
Yesterday I watched the Braves lose at the WWoS Complex, 6-2, in a game that wasn’t as close as it sounds. Still it was enjoyable; after all, it was baseball. Last year was Chipper Jones’s final year – after 19 of them, all with Atlanta – and everyone was bidding him adieu. I saw a game against the Yankees, and lots of them – Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, even Joe Girardi – stopped over at third during warmups to chat him up.
There’s a real difference between the two parks. Oceola County Stadium is elderly by present-day standards, having been completed in 1985. It holds 3500 fans, which makes it the smallest of the Grapefruit League stadia. I like it. There’s no flash and dash. It’s intimate; one thinks of old-time baseball. The tickets are relatively inexpensive, ranging from $16 and $20 and $25 to a few $50 box seats by the dugouts. The inter-inning entertainment is old-timey, too. There’s an organ that plays stuff like “You Are My Sunshine” and (no surprise, given the Astros’ Houston roots) “Yellow Rose of Texas”; and between innings a young blonde woman in an orange Astros jersey cheerleads young contestants in tricycle races and dizzy-bat sprints and so on. Remember Bull Durham?
As the promo puts it, when fans enter Mickey’s Kingdom, “Something magical happens.” The WWoS Complex can host more than 60 sports. There are nine different venues, some actually for sports – track and field, tennis, lacrosse, soccer, indoor sports, softball, and of course baseball. Merchandise venues are present also: the Clubhouse Shop, the WWoS Grill, the Playstation Pavilion. The stadium itself holds 9500 fans, thus nearly three times Osceola County Stadium.
The tickets are pricier. Well, for $12 a fan can sit on the “berm” (the grassy knoll). Bleachers and upper level seats range from $27 to $39, and the lower level from $39 to $52. And there’s a walk-up fee of $5 to buy a ticket on game day.
The WWoS stadium has the flash and dazzle. Fireworks erupt at the end of the Star Spangled Banner and after home runs. A saxophone quartet – four old guys in baseball uniforms holding bass, alto, tenor, and soprano horns – play old-time music between some of the innings. And – surprise! – the Mouse comes out to help with the first pitch. Of course, once the Braves get going, it’s just baseball, and the old game sails right along, sometimes majestically.
There’s some buzz going around that the Astros – perhaps drawn by the hopes of WWoS ticket prices – are looking for greener pastures. Too bad for me, if they move. As far as I’m concerned, both parks are fine. There’s only one drawback at the WWoS complex. Cheering competitions must be happening someplace inside, because I always see the cheer team competitors walking in and out. The girls seem to range from ten to sixteen, though I think some are older than that and some younger. They are terrifying, these girls, especially the younger ones. They wear spangled tops, bare midriffs, and tight shorts. Their makeup is mindboggling: thick red lipstick, heavy rouge, dark glittered mascara. They look like 30-year-old midgets, hard as nails. Leaving the park, I pass them by, my eyes averted, trying to keep baseball firm in my head.
March, 2014 ©
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