Spring Comes to New England … from Ft. Myers

No one not born and raised in New England can understand what the Red Sox mean to those of us who do have roots in that part of the country. When one baseball season ends, we spend a week or so pondering what went right and brooding over everything that went wrong. Then, even before the snow flies, we shift our focus to the next season, looking ahead to several special days that are official checkpoints marking our passage through the winter on the way to another Opening Day at venerable Fenway Park.

The first occurred a week ago — Truck Day. That’s when a huge moving van pulls up to Fenway Park, is loaded with all the equipment and other gear, and heads off to the Red Sox Spring Training complex in Fort Myers, Florida. Truck Day is thoroughly covered by the Boston media and marks the official end of winter, blizzard conditions notwithstanding.

And forget about the spring solstice … today, not March 20th, is the First Day of Spring. This is the day pitchers and catchers are required to officially report in at the Fort Myers facility, although probably a dozen or more other players have already been working out at the facilities for several days.

Spring Training officially begins this coming Saturday when all players have to report. There will probably be someone missing — invariably a player from Venezuala, the Dominican Republic or elsewhere in Latin America who has experienced “some confusion over his visa.”

The first couple of exhibition games are traditionally played against college teams — usually Boston College and Northeastern University. (Reporter: “Tell me, kid, how did it feel to give up a 450-foot home run to David Ortiz? BC player: “It was awsome!”)

Next come the exhibition games against other big league teams. Veteran players are in the starting lineups, play at 3/4 speed, and are gone after three or four innings. The purpose of these games, after all, is to give the coaching staff a chance to see the rookies perform against big league competetion. Of course, the other team is doing to same thing, so our rookies end up playing their rookies.

Probably 60-70 players will report on Saturday and the harsh reality is that most will be released or traded or assigned to one of the Red Sox farm teams. Only 25 will make the final squad and travel north to begin the 2011 season. And that is when New Englanders, who have been battered and frozen and are fed up with winter, will rise up and cry out in one voice: Let the games begin!

Go Sox!