3-19-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
March is an incredibly busy time for me. Oh, yeah it’s Spring Training and there’s certainly lots to cover on here and on my show, but in my real job, it’s crunch time, so finding a way to slip off to Florida doesn’t happen for me as often as I’d like. This year we were able to make it happen, and man, it’s been too long.
It was my wife’s first time, and we stayed with Craig Toth, formerly of this site, currently of Bucs in the Basement Podcast and also current very good friend, about ten minutes by old fashioned hoof to the stadium.
You remember that guy right? One thing we both felt was funny, at least 5 people saw us together and assumed we were hashing out something. We tried to tell you all Craig just wanted to step away from writing, not being friends. I’ll say this though, I had forgotten how much I absolutely love just talking baseball with Craig. When he was writing here, it just happened organically.
Not things like I’ve got this source, you have this one, let’s compare notes, just actual baseball. How a guy’s swing looks, how a pitch shape was coming along, positional battles, players who have impressed us. There’s just nothing that can really replace talking baseball with a good friend.
I’m lucky, that’s literally what my podcast the Pirates Fan Forum is, but Craig and I have always had a way of pushing back on what the other saw as THE path and it’s part of what has always helped me keep in check.
We arrived Tuesday Morning with a game scheduled that day at 1:05, it seemed like a quick check in followed by a short walk to the stadium made sense. But, rental services being what they are, of course we couldn’t check in on time, so my trooper of a wife and I grabbed a great breakfast and changed out of our Wintery Pittsburgh gear in the car and zipped over to the game.
Truly great bite to eat, and yes, we started hitting the booze early. Well, you try getting your hands on Jai Alai in Pittsburgh!
Now, the game. Man, what an atmosphere, it was loaded with good players and those good players did good things.
The Bucs beat up on the Braves travel team that day with Cruz and Suwinski hitting homers. Cruz in the first home at bat of the day, oppo. Spring Training hero Billy McKinney did too of course. I will say the Pirates really got to Braves starter and expected member of their rotation Reynaldo Lopez, he just couldn’t find the strike zone and when he did they hit him.
There’s always something you can take from a game, even an exhibition, even when one team barely brings a team.
We were tired, so we went and checked in and talked Craig into going out for dinner even though he was on death’s door himself and we staggered home for an early night in, hoping to recover quickly.
I promised my wife we’d just have a fun day bouncing around on Wednesday, and we did. We headed over to Anna Maria Island which took quite some time, you can’t drive 2 miles down there without it taking 45 minutes if it’s at the wrong time. Beautiful, great meal at Dock Side with the best seat in the house, and next time I promised my beautiful wife we’ll stay over there instead.
That night we headed back to town and hung out at a can’t miss for some drinks and watched the game a bit going on down in Dunedin.
This whole time we’ve been running into fans of the show, or the site, I even had someone ask me how Josh Booth from Bridge 2 Buctober Podcast managed to not get burnt to a crisp when he was down there.
That stuff was a blast, and the entire day was like that. A farmer’s market we met someone, Motorworks a few people, even on the beach we saw a family with a giant Pirates themed setup and talked some ball.
I’ll get to Thursday next, but before I do, let’s talk a bit about just how very into all of this everyone we met was. I mean, when the Pirates start bringing in the guys with no names on their backs, you’d hear five people, and I say that specifically because men and women alike knew who those guys were, knew their careers, knew their chances to move up this year, everything.
It was incredible to witness. You could turn in any direction, round any corner and run into someone who could go off on any subject you brought up about the Pirates.
We met this nice lady Lynda at the new Smash Burger stand in the concourse, didn’t know me from Adam, but seating was limited so she asked if she could sit with us. Ended up missing 2 innings of baseball talking about her observations about Henry Davis behind the plate. If you’re a baseball nerd and don’t classify yourself as an introvert, go, have fun, it’s like you’ve lived your whole life in a foreign land. Sure you know the language, but then you travel somewhere and hear your native tongue being spoken all around you. Suddenly I didn’t have to explain underlying rules before saying “they won’t do this or that”. Just a great experience.
Thursday was always going to be the feature day for me. First I met up with Craig over at Pirates City to watch some batting practice and there was supposed to be a scrimmage at 1 that was cancelled.
I left around 12:30 and headed back to get packed up, Meg and I planned to leave right after the baseball for Tampa as we had an early flight in the morning.
Two games at LECOM, starting with the Pirates and Orioles who brought their A squad at 3:05. Fun game, well pitched by Marco Gonzales who went 5 giving up one run and striking out 4 but alas the Bucs dropped that contest 5-2.
The night cap started at 7, and for Craig and I at least, it was the feature of the entire trip. The Spring Breakout game between the Orioles and Pirates top prospects. The Pirates did prevail in this one, even though half the place emptied out.
Fun event.
Paul Skenes, Termarr Johnson, Hunter Barco, Braxton Ashcraft, Cheng, Forrester, Brannigan, Bubba Chandler, Lonnie White, man it was something. Paul pumping 101, 101, 102 to start off his one inning and triumphantly marching around the mound with a fist pump after whiffing Jackson Holliday, it was everything we hoped it would be.
A quick walk back to the place, loaded the car and straight to Tampa we went.
I probably didn’t get a chance to really sit down and process the entire trip until maybe Sunday, but my god we just packed in a ton of stuff for a 3 day trip.
Next time we’ll stay longer. We’ll probably stay on the island too. But the environment, the conversations, all of it is so great. If it’s within your means, I highly encourage you to give it a shot.
No matter how much you read, no matter how much attention you pay, unless you go, you have no idea the kind of production Spring Training is. Across multiple sites, hundreds of players are following detailed plans laid out to the minute for every individual.
There’s bussing of players, scrimmages both internally and externally. guys you haven’t seen play are pitching and hitting off site, like Martin Perez on Tuesday at Pirates City.
Seeing all that action, man I’ll tell you what, I was beat from watching baseball from 10-9, most of these guys are actively playing it in some form easily that long. To fully appreciate what’s happening down there, you really do have to just see it.
I know this piece is a little different, but thanks for letting me go on and on about it. This trip meant a lot to me, and I’ll treasure it forever. Can’t wait to get back.
Steel City Pirates 