TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME

Hey, sports fans, do you know about the spring training camps for Major League Baseball?  There are 2 leagues of 15 teams each that train in Florida and Arizona.  The Florida group is called the Grapefruit League and the Arizona group is called the Cactus League.  The Cactus League is located in the Phoenix metropolitan area with the greatest concentration of professional baseball facilities in the United States.  http://www.cactusleague.com/  And we have a beautiful baseball stadium here in Surprise just a few miles away from us that is the home base (pun) for the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers.

The teams arrived in mid-February to start their spring training and their pre-season schedule includes a game almost every day from then until the end of March.  We waited until the weather was warmer and headed out to see a game between the Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Mariners last week.  It was an afternoon game and we decided to purchase tickets at the gate which turned out to be a good decision.  While waiting in line, Stuart started talking to a guy in front of us who is a regular attender with season tickets.  This day, however, he and his wife were taking their grandchildren to the game so they were purchasing cheap tickets for the kids and would sit on the lawn in the outfield with them.  Since they weren't using their regular seats, he offered them to us so we got an excellent deal.  All we had to pay for was the cheap tickets ($8 each) and then he traded with us once we were through the gates.

Grass seating 

The seats were in the front row of the upper level behind and to the right of home plate and they were probably the best seats in the stadium.  We could see the players close up and even hear some of their conversations as they played.  Our section was cheering for the Mariners so we joined in with them even though we had no favourite. 

Our seats in the front row of the upper level

 The game started out very close with only a 1 run difference in score but then Kansas City pulled slowly ahead to win the game after the top of the 9^th inning.

Part of the pre-season game training is to give all of the pitchers a chance to play, so there was a new pitcher almost every inning and even some of the other players traded off during the game.

We saw one home run, some excellent base hits and some double headers.  The attendance at the game was just over 6,000 people which is a very good turnout for a Wednesday afternoon. 

It was great baseball to watch and something new for us to experience.