Every year before the season starts, MLB teams travel either to Arizona or Florida for spring training. Spring training includes batting practices, field practices, and the best: games, which are played against other MLB teams. The Phoenix area is home of the Cactus League and this is where an array of teams train.My love for baseball rooted from basically being raised on a diamond and having family heavily invested in major league baseball.
My favorite teams include the Boston Red Sox, the Baltimore Orioles, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and of course the San Francisco Giants. I have always wanted to live in a city that housed a MLB team…choosing to move to Tempe, AZ was the best choice I made. The past few spring seasons I have seen my siblings or relatives attend spring training practices and games but back then being a broke high school kid, I was never able to attend or skip school for it. This year was my very first spring training and it had been the most amazing experience of my life so far.
I am very close to both of my siblings so we all went together, enjoyed the sun and cheered on our faves. I attended about nine or ten games and countless practices, experienced being on the big screen during the seventh inning stretch, got a Steven Souza Jr. foul ball, and my claim to fame: I met one of my favorite players, Buster Posey, the catcher for the San Francisco Giants.
The majority of the games I attended were Diamondbacks games, so they were played at the Talking Stick Fields in Scottsdale. Talking Stick Fields are one of many fields scattered throughout the metropolitan area from Mesa to Goodyear and of course the best of them all. Being at the games is relaxing and a chance to just let go of reality for a few hours.
Being surrounded by thousands of people who are just as equally invested into the games, the players, and the ambiance of the game is truly a unifying feeling and the purest joy and content one could feel. Seeing people of all ages from one year old to ninety years old shows how meaningful it truly is and how united we all are when we simply enjoy the delight of baseball.
No bigotry, no hate (except maybe for the other team), no ignorance, no walls of separation. Everyone is just there to have a good time and be around others who enjoy baseball just as much as they do.