You may know that I go alone on an annual pilgrimage to Major League Baseball spring training in Florida. (That's me in the middle of the photo, taken at Baycare Ballpark in Clearwater, Florida). I'd like to share a little history of how this annual ritual came about.
My love for baseball grew, right away, at my first spring training trip. What I noticed immediately was how small the ballparks were. I could catch one of the star players and I could get him to autograph a ball for me. There were only maybe 5 or 6 thousand people in the crowd. It’s sparsely populated, which enables an intimacy you don’t experience at a regular season game. I could walk right down to the field before and even during a game, talk to my idols and get their autographs.
Quality Time with Important People
While in Florida, two other special side events occurred. I met up with my good friend from Philly, also a lawyer who actually swore me into the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in December of 1998, Tim. I've known him since 1975. Tim and Lori, his wife, decided to get out of Philadelphia and move to Boynton Beach, so we decided to meet up. Tim and I grew up in the same area of Philly, you're talking junior and senior high school together, delivering papers in the neighborhood, going to movies, concerts, the whole kit and caboodle. It was good to see him.
Another person I got to see was our law firm’s longest tenured employee and our senior paralegal, Elaine Anderson, who now lives in St. Petersburg where she still works for the firm remotely. I had arranged to meet with her and her husband Craig. We had a nice little visit and it was really good to see her after about 8 years or so. The whole spring training annual trip, I'm not giving myself all the credit, but I'll just say that whoever invented it, it’s a great idea. It was just fantastic.
Meeting My Kindred Spirit
Oh. I forgot something. When preparing to write this article, I didn't even write it down. And I never got this guy's picture as photo evidence. Something new and unusual happened this year. I was at a park and I ran into this guy. I'm walking behind him just before the World Baseball Classic finished and he had a very unusual WBC jacket on. He had all the country stickers and all that stuff. I asked, "So where are you from?" He said, "South Korea." And I replied, "You've been going to the games?" "Yeah,” he said, “I've been going to all the World Classic games." He spoke in broken English, so we couldn't carry on much more of a conversation. I met him on the first weekend, I think it was at Dunedin. The Jays versus the Yankees.
Curiously, a week later, I saw the guy again at Lakeland. He wasn’t wearing the same outfit, so I asked "Aren't you the guy that I saw?" He smiled and said, "Yeah. Yeah. Did you go to the (WBC) final?" I responded, "Yeah." He remarked, "Was that amazing?" I said, "Yeah." So we talked about the game. That was really great, running into this guy who was following the WBC from South Korea on his own. He also went to spring training games too. Probably no more than 30 years old, just a baseball loving wanderer like yours truly. It made me fully realize how worldwide the passion for the game has become - - and that I wasn’t the inventor or lone guy on a spring baseball pilgrimage. I hope to run into him again next year.
I’ll just sum this up by urging you, too, to follow your passion, whatever it may be - - and do it with your family, old friends, and new ones!
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