If you love baseball, there’s probably no better sound than the crack of a bat making that first contact with the ball after the first pitch, or the sound of a vendor yelling, “peanuts!”
For the next few weeks, you can hear those sounds here in the Tampa Bay area because spring training has begun. Fans of the Blue Jays, Phillies, Yankees and other teams that train in the area get a chance to see them up close before the regular season.
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Major League Baseball teams and their fans have been coming to the Tampa Bay region for more than 100 years for spring training, a tradition long known in Florida as the Grapefruit League.
For the past 16 years, the Baltimore Orioles have been coming to the Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota. "Florida Matters" visited the stadium one day before the start of the spring season this past weekend.
On this warm morning, a cluster of fans lined up behind the stadium to watch Orioles players go through batting drills on a practice field’s perfectly rolled green turf.
Jennifer Grondahl, the Orioles' senior vice president communications, served as our tour guide. Grondahl said spring training is a reset for the team, which plays in the American League's Eastern Division (as do our hometown Tampa Bay Rays).
We start off on the practice field.
“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve made the playoffs multiple years in a row, which is a significant achievement. But, you know, you want to win a World Series. That’s your mindset going into every single year.”
This is Grondahl’s eighth season with the Orioles, although she didn’t grow up in a baseball household.
“I grew up watching football. My father was a huge football fan. There were no boys in the house, so he taught me how to throw a spiral when I was a kid, and I played a little bit of sports in college and in high school,” she said.
She said she didn’t really get into baseball until later on in life, but one thing she loves about the game is the strategy.
"Since I'm in it, I understand it a little bit better, but I also think it's very relaxing,” she said.
“And the statistics of this game, it's a perfect blend of tradition, but also all of those analytics and sabermetric … the precision that can give teams advantages. And I think we've seen that when you saw (the film) "Moneyball," that's real, and now it's Moneyball 5.0 because of the advancements that they've made in the sport. But just watching, you know, when they replace a pitcher or just any kind of play, you realize how much goes into all those decisions.”
Grondahl takes us into the stands.
On the pitcher’s mound, one of the Orioles' newest players, Japanese pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano, is warming up. This was his first time throwing at the stadium.
Ed Smith Sadium embodies baseball’s mix of tradition and newness that Grondahl was talking about. It was renovated by Sarasota County in the 2010s for about $30 million.
The green, vintage seats stand out. They were once part of Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, one of the first "retro" ballparks, which replaced 42-year-old Memorial Stadium in 1992.
“Camden Yards is by far one of the most iconic not just baseball but sporting venues in the world. These seats that we're looking at right now here at Ed Smith Stadium are from Camden Yards,” Grondahl said. “When this stadium renovation was happening, they made the decision to bring some of the old seats here, and it's pretty cool. And I think when fans come in, they recognize it because of some of the design on the side of the seats. And it's beautiful.”
Many fans travel from afar to see their favorite teams play in Florida. Grondahl said baseball has some of the more loyal followers. That includes fans of the Orioles, who moved to Baltimore in 1954 from St. Louis, where they were known as the Browns for 52 years.
“They're loyal to their teams, and one of the reasons I think that we draw so well is because the Orioles are such a historic franchise and have such a rich history,” she said. “So, you're going to see fans that have been following the team since they were at Memorial Stadium years ago.”
Among the fans watching the workout were three siblings: Bob Roberts, Jean Roberts Schweitzer and Betsy Roberts.
Bob and Jean flew down from Baltimore to visit Betsy, who lives in Sarasota and just got a job at the stadium, and catch the opening weekend of games.
“I go to a lot of games in Baltimore during regular season. I've driven by Ed Smith Stadium before a few times, but never been inside the facility. Beautiful place," said Bob Roberts.
He said he loves the feel of Ed Smith Stadium.
“[It’s] a little more low key, little more relaxed. And, of course, the weather you can’t beat. Beats the 20 degrees in Baltimore right now.”
Rick Vaughn, who has led public relations for the Rays and Orioles, has written two books about the history of baseball in the area. He said fans, and even the players, move to Florida to enjoy baseball in comfortable weather, in addition to all that the Tampa area offers.
“They'll train here, and then you'll see them retire, and they'll end up living where they were training. They see the promise and all of the great assets of the city that they're training in. To a much greater extent, you've got fans that come down here from the North. They're here for a couple of weeks, and they get into a regular pattern of doing that, and it becomes their second home.”
Although spring training in Florida dates back to the 1800s, the Tampa Bay area got involved in 1913, when Tampa Mayor D.B. McKay lured the Chicago Cubs to Plant Field (now site of the University of Tampa's Pepin Field). A year later, St. Petersburg businessman Al Lang brought in the Browns. Sarasota's first spring visitor, the New York Giants, played in Payne Park beginning in 1924.
“For Tampa, it's the 100th spring that Tampa has hosted a major league team,” Vaughn said. “There's been some gaps along the way. It started with the Cubs in 1913. There were some gaps in between the Cubs and the Red Sox. There were the war years during [19]43, ‘44, and ‘45, where the government would not allow any of the teams to travel. And then when the Reds left (for Plant City) in the '80s, until the Yankees came (from Fort Lauderdale) in the '90s, there was a gap. So, although it spans from 1913 to 2025, it's 100 springs.”
Vaughn said the cigar industry is what brought baseball to Tampa. When Cubans came to Ybor City, they brought baseball with them. He said all the cigar factories had teams and the sport really just became a part of the lifestyle in the city.
“There was also a feeling that baseball was actually played by soldiers during the Civil War, and when they returned home to Florida, it was that combination of them bringing the game with them, plus you had all of the Latins working in the cigar industry who loved the game, and it became a big deal.”
Tampa even had its own minor league club, the Tampa Smokers, who unlike the major league teams, played in the area all year.
Vaughn is full of stories, including ones about Tampa's first Hall of Famer, Al Lopez, as well as Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson.
Listen to the full episode now on the media player above.
