Spring Training Begins This Week

This coming Friday spring training baseball starts for the Seattle Mariners. If you are a player or a fan you have been looking forward to it for a few weeks. Officially the pitchers and catchers report on Friday while the rest of the players start on Sunday.

Many of the players have been already working out in Arizona for several weeks. Some of the players live in Arizona during the off-season. Though spring training starts this week the games actually do not begin until early March about a month before the season begins. The Seattle Mariners opening game is at home in Seattle on April 6.

If you are a baseball fan the best time to come for spring training is in mid-March.  It is when the games are going on to see the starting players. The early games you likely will see mostly the young players. I went to spring training two years ago in mid-March and had a great time. I saw four games in the week I was there. I went two games during the afternoon and two in the afternoon.  I stayed with my cousin Christy and her husband David who live only about ten minutes away from the Mariners training facility.

During the mornings David and I would go visit the facility to see the players taking batting practice or some other drills. The pitchers would be warming up in the bullpen or do some stretching on one of the fields. The Mariners have twelve fields to work on for both the major leaguers and minor leaguers. The measurements of the fields are all the same just like the main field the Mariners play their games on.

One morning I saw King Felix Hernandez the Mariners number one pitcher taking a few batting swings with a few other pitchers. They were just playing around though not being very serious. In fact Felix hit a ball over the fence behind home plate. A man was able to get the ball for his son and had Felix autograph the ball. A few minutes later when the team started to get together Felix autograph some balls for the fans. Most of the fans were young kids. He was on the other side of the fence so if you wanted to get an autograph you had to toss the ball over the fence. He autographed for about five minutes before having to go with the other players. One older lady was able to get an autograph from Felix. She had a copy of the ticket to game she went to that Felix had pitched a no hitter the season before. She was very excited, and remembered to that it was her birthday. I believe experiences like that it will be hard to ever forget.

On another morning at the facility Felix was being interviewed by ESPN and was getting ready to do a commercial that in a few days was being shown on television in Seattle. Though I was not able to get an autograph from Felix I was able to get an autograph from several other Mariner players.

Another experience I had at that spring training was that I had the chance to speak for several minutes with former Mariner first baseman Alvin Davis. It was his first time as an instructor with the Mariners at spring training. It was a really good time and I was able to get his autograph as well. He told me that he was looking forward to his daughter getting married later in the year. This is what spring training is all about. If you ever have a chance to go and I plan to again sometime I would do it. It is quite the experience.