March 17, 2014 – Nationals at Tigers rained out – Lakeland FL

At least it beats snow in Washington 

Section 201, Row M, Seat 5 (grandstand, down the right field line as usual) 

The gloomy central Florida weather forecast for St. Patrick’s Day proved all too accurate. While it wasn’t raining when we got there around noon, and in fact they rolled the tarp off the field, shortly thereafter it started raining hard enough that we left our seats for cover under the stands. It did stop again for a bit, but the rain resumed and increased, and the game was called off around 2:00.

The day was certainly not a complete loss, however. I got to look around the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings at Florida Southern College nearby, and was also able to catch up with the Gowen clan (on Bart’s birthday, no less).

I made the mistake of parking in the main lot, which took forever to get out of. My more perspicacious friends wisely parked in an unofficial lot, which meant that they beat me to Buffalo Wild Wings by over half an hour.

March 16, 2014 – Pirates 5, Phillies 0 – Clearwater FL

Hit batsmen, gulls, and runless wonders 

Weather: 79 degrees, sunny.

Wind: 24 mph, R to L.

T: 2:40.

Att: 10,544 [another sellout at Bright House Field]

Umpires: HP: Tom Hallion. 1B: Phil Cuzzi. 3B: Vic Carapazza.

Section 102, Row 10, Seat 2 (further down the RF line than Thursday) 

Question – why in Clearwater do they drag the infield after the second and fifth innings, rather than the typical third and sixth?

My request for better seventh-inning stretch music was not exactly honored – they did “Y.M.C.A.” instead of “Cotton-Eyed Joe”. They did redeem themselves by putting on Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” at the end of the seventh.

A flock of seagulls (15 or so – the real thing rather than the musical variety) landed in shallow center field just before the seventh inning, and basically hung around for most of the game. Presumably all of the sitting room on the berm was occupied by humans.   ;-)

Given the impotence of the Phils offense, the gulls ranked as one of the highlights of the afternoon. There were also 5 hit batters, leading to a warning to both benches in the top of the seventh. Will be interesting to see whether any ill feelings carry over – the teams still play each other once more in Florida, plus two more exhibition games in Philly right before the start of the regular season.

Meanwhile, the Bucs scored runs of each of the 3 Phils pitchers who will or might make the team (O’Sullivan, Papelbon, Bastardo), with a Neil Walker homer in the seventh finishing off the scoring. Two pitchers from the minor league camp, Mike Nesseth and Kyle Simon, did retire the last 7 Pittsburgh batters of the afternoon.