After my most recent blog entry from Ft. Myers, my wife arrived to take part in the fun in the sun. Unsurprisingly, time spent at the keyboard diminished to near-zero until I got home. This post represents a condensed and abbreviated review of the rest of my stay in Florida.

All baseball and no beach makes Ash a dull boy, at least in certain people's eyes. At left, you'll see circumstantial evidence that Friday morning was devoted to Ft. Myers Beach. Also, below, someone there went to the trouble of constructing a lavish sand castle - but parts of it have a suburban pre-fab cookie-cutter look, I think. Call it a Sand McMansion With Moat.

Back to the back fields with Mrs Ash, for the afternoon games. Jason Wheeler was the starting pitcher for the AAA team, while major-league closer Brandon Kintzler dropped down a couple of notches to pitch the first couple of innings in the AA game. I peeked at the radar gun for Wheeler and he was sitting at 88-89 for his fastball, with off-speed pitches in the low 80s - same ol' Jason, and I wish him well but the current mindset in baseball doesn't give him much hope for even a cup of coffee in the majors by this point.

Alex Muren was one of my TD Adopt-A-Prospects when I was pretty new to the site, so for sentimental reasons I still am rooting for him to make it past some recent physical ailments and get over the AA hurdle. Here he is, warming up to relieve in the AA game, possibly touching 92-93 with his fastball:

Dan Rohlfing hit a long home run in the AAA game. I could show you a photo of his home run trot heading toward home, but you kind of know what that looks like already, right? Ahead of him, Engelb Vielma managed to get on base by a fielder's choice, stole second...

...and made it to third base on an error before the big blast. If he scores a lot of runs this year for Rochester it may be in this style, because I still don't see enough from him to indicate his bat is ready for the majors.

Here, during the traditional mid-game milling-about period (the back fields' answer to the Seventh Inning Stretch?), Todd van Steensel rocks the full-beard look:

Van Steensel lugged that heavy beard out to the AAA mound and seemed to be throwing gas this day, hitting 94 mph several times that I noticed, with off-speed stuff in the mid-80s. Trevor Hildenberger, next, threw at most 89 mph with his sidearm delivery, but at least one of his mix of pitches was down at 74, for quite a range of speeds to be looking out for.

On the AA side, Eduardo del Rosario was also in 94 mph territory, with breaking pitches in the 84-87 range. He did well.

The major leaguers played a night game against the Orioles, and I attended along with Mrs Ash and a couple of other TDers. Pictured below, outside Hammond Stadium before the game, TC Bear terrorizes a child with his cold lifeless eyes, while older fans flee in panic:

Just before the game, there was an appearance by the famous Clydesdales, sponsored by a brand of carbonated water I believe. These are really magnificent critters:

Oh, and as for the game? It was a bad one, as far as I was concerned. Ervin Santana pitched well, and gave up only one run, but he deserved better because the defense behind him was atrocious. There were errors, or poor plays not counted as such, two by Rosario, one each by Sano, Dozier, and Hague. The home team had a big inning with 5 runs, but late in the game when both teams had the minor leaguers in they gave the runs back courtesy of Tonkin and non-roster hopeful Drew Rucinski (who probably lost a fair percentage of his remaining hope), and it was 5-5 after nine. Naturally, they didn't even bother with a tenth inning. Can you see why I, in return, don't bother coming to (and paying for) very many of the big league games in Florida? Here's my one visual highlight from the game: Buxton going first-to-third on a single to right. Even on a fairly routine play, he's a blur, right? It's certainly not due to any inexpertise by the camera operator, I will assure you.

Saturday. I spent the morning at the back fields, while Mrs Ash shopped. I discovered after snapping a few photos that I had neglected to put the memory card back into the camera, so there are no pictures to share for that part of the trip. The morning was hardly a total loss, as I still enjoyed the A and high-A games, and I got to meet TD luminary Bob Sacamento.

After lunch, we rode with Chief and Diehard to Sarasota to see the big league club take on the Orioles. Here are pictures of Ed Smith Stadium - it's a much nicer facility than I was expecting. The press box:

... and the view of the neighborhood from inside the park:

... and the capacity crowd:

The park was so full because it was fireworks night - the only available tickets were Standing Room, but because we arrived early we had good "seats" nearly behind home plate as you can see, and mid-game a kindly usher located four vacant seats for us pretty near the field.

The game itself was crummy again (the Twins brought their scrubbeenies, and never put up much of a fight after Santiago gave up a pair of long HRs), and the biggest lowlight for me was when Niko Goodrum, after having impressed me every time I watched him on the back fields, made a putrid play as a late-inning sub at second base. But hey, the fireworks were good, and so was the conversation, so the night was still a Win in my book.

Sunday. It was a day off for the minor leaguers, and we'd had our fill of the big club. So, back to the Gulf of Mexico, this time at nearby Bonita Beach. After a morning of sun and sand, Mrs Ash and I moseyed further south to Naples (be sure to ask Chief about renting Segways online there), and spent some pleasant hours at the Botanical Garden there. They have a nice butterfly cage you can walk through

and an exhibition of sculptures inspired by origami dotting the landscape

One should believe the several signs informing you that all the wetlands on the site are inviting habitats for alligators. Here is a fine specimen basking in the afternoon sun:

Dinner was back in Ft Myers at Fancy's, a southern cuisine restaurant where we shared an order of chicken-and-waffles, plus frogs legs and black-eyed peas and collard greens - it's near Hammond and I highly recommend it. After that, we hustled over to the Bell Tower cinema to see "Get Out".

For a totally non-baseball day, it was all right, I guess.

Monday. My last morning was spent much as the rest of the trip, on the back fields, chatting with Halsey and ChiTown. I snapped some photos of morning calisthenics

You might assume the above were wind sprints, but they were pretty leisurely. After this, morning drills and skills were the focus. Here's catcher Mitchell Kranson receiving a pitch:

When it was nearly time to go, I wandered up toward the front of the CenturyLink Sports Complex, and thereupon discovered it was Truck Day. Well, not really. Truck Day is an actual thing in Boston - it's the day, early each February, that the trucks are loaded up at Fenway for the drive down to Spring Training - an event that is usually attended by several hundred Red Sox fans, and for which the team puts together a little parade down Van Ness Street complete with Wally the mascot and various other dignitaries. In the throes of never-ending Winter, it's a confident sign that Spring Is On Its Way. Well, this was different. It was the day the players' cars are loaded onto half a dozen or more trucks, for transport up to the Twin Cities. A confident sign that The Regular Season Is On Its Way. Not as catchy, and not made to be a thing for fans particularly, but still pretty cool:

And with this, I said my goodbyes and took one last look at the fountains, and headed to the airport with Mrs Ash to face rain and snow for a few more weeks in New England. I hope this little series encourages some of you to give Spring Training a try one year.