It’s Baseball Time

Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE

Every year my brother (Charlie) and I go to Baseball’s Spring Training Cactus League with our boys.

 

Brad and Daniel are my boys. Jon and Kenny are Charlie’s boys. Their ages are one-year apart. They are each in their 40’s.

We have always enjoyed our time together on long weekends. It is bonding time.

We catch up with our lives, watch baseball games and philosophize.

Brad, Charlie, Daniel

I always come away invigorated.

This year Kenny could not come. Last year Jon brought his son Jack. He was 10. We put Jack on our Junior Varsity.  This year we promoted Jack to the varsity. He knows baseball better than all of us.

The first game was the Oakland A’s vs. The Seattle Mariners. It was not a great game. The games never are. The great thing about the games is the smell of the grass, the pop of the mitt, the crack of the bat and being with our boys.

Oakland A's Field 

 

Gaylord Perry       Bert Campaneris  Fergie Jenkins

 

Saturday’s game was the Colorado Rockies vs. the Arizona Diamond Backs at the new Salt Lake Fields At Talking Stick.

Salt River Fields at Talking Stick is a stadium complex located in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community near Scottsdale, Arizona.

It is the newest Major League Baseball spring training facility. It is the shared home for the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies.

It is a beautiful ball field. The Cactus League is growing each year. Arizona weather is wonderful in March. It is much better than Florida’s March weather. The humidity is high in Florida’s Grapefruit League.

The Cactus League has figured out the right price point for the tickets to the games. Tickets in Florida can be five to ten times higher.

 

Daniel and the DiamondBacks

Stan and Daniel

Publicity is great and the baseball experience is user friendly.

On Sunday we saw the opening Spring Training game for the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals. They share a relative new training facility (10 years old) in Surprise Arizona. Surprise is a new town about 30 miles northwest of Scottsdale.

Every year the roads to Surprise get better and the trip shorter. Surprise is growing by leaps ad bounds. A person would never think America is in a Recession/Depression.

There are more new restaurants and shopping centers popping each year than can be imagined.

Josh Hamilton 

We had a treat. Ron Washington kept the first team in the game for five innings. It didn’t matter to any of us that the American League Champs were really lousy on Sunday.

The only thing that matters to the six of us was being together and the smell of ice cold beer, peanuts, popcorn and Cracker Jacks. 

Next weekend my brother and I are going to hit some baseballs.

The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” is, mine and mine alone

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