The Magic of Spring Training
It was five o'clock in the morning, and my roommate, Jim, was waking me up so we could hop in his brown, sporty but beat-up Nissan to travel across Alligator Alley and up the Gulf Coast to Clearwater. In my junior year at the University of Miami, this was the first time I had ventured to see the Phillies in Spring Training. Just the day before, Jim made the suggestion. I packed my books so I could get some studying in during the five hour drive, and off we went. Jim was something of a odd bird. Unlike me, who was raised in Fishtown and spent much of my childhood at Veterans Stadium, Jim was from North Carolina. He rooted for the Phillies because he loved Mike Schmidt. Although we were two years removed from Schmidt's retirement, he continued to be a Phillies fan. This created a strange combination for him, as he was a Cowboys fan in football; something I always teased him about. At the time, baseball card collecting was in its hay day. In Miami, a Jose Canseco rookie card cou...