Scott Butherus' "View from the Cheap Seats" spring training blog, Mar. 13: Today was a return to what spring training is all about: blue skies, a laid-back crowd and $5 drafts of premium beer. (There would be no Bud Lights in the forecast for today.) Out of all the stadiums that I've visited so far, none has captured the essence of spring training better than Hammond Park in Fort Myers, the training home for the Minnesota Twins. Before the game, fans can get up close and personal with the players on their way to the practice fields located behind the main stadium. As one young signature-seeker told me, “You can get all kinds of autographs back here,” brandishing a Joe Mauer autograph. "It's not like the Red Sox where maybe just a few of the players sign after batting practice.”
      The intimate setting carries over into to the park as well. By the second inning the beer ladies knew me by name and the ushers had started calling me “Cheap Seats.” The bullpens were set off the field with the concourses overlooking

them; the sound of the catchers' mitts just ten feet below me had the

familiar leather-clad smackFtmyers_sox313_016

. The minimal foul territory

enables fans to get close to the action. In fact they are

almost too close; the bright yellow signs warning spectators to be

aware of live bats and balls flying into the stands proved to be

prophetic, as two different people had to be helped out by paramedics

after being drilled by foul balls. I don’t mean to laugh, but when someone takes a shot to the face because he didn’t want

to drop his beer…

This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2007.