Saturday, February 23, 2013

Today we drove to Sarasota so that we could attend the opening game for the Baltimore Orioles spring training season. 

 The team moved their operations here in 2010. Ed Smith Stadium is extremely fan friendly. It doesn’t appear to me to be any larger than the Baysox Stadium in Bowie, but it sure was a lot warmer here!

The Minnesota Twins were the visiting team. It was fun during the opening ceremonies when a weather report was given. It was announced that the current temperature in Baltimore was 34°, 26° in Minnesota and 82° in Sarasota. There was a rousing cheer from the fans.

I attempted to keep score, but gave up in the 6^th inning when both teams changed 5 players each. I only had 10 lines for each team on my scorecard.

 I was glad to see that the first string players started the game. Brian Roberts is back and I sure hope he stays healthy this season. Matt Wieters got a double for his first hit of this year.

The score was tied 3-3 until Trayvon Robinson hit a 2 run home run in the 8^th inning and the O’s won 5-3.

 

Of course we took time to stop on our way in and out of town to look for some geocaches. My favorite was placed on an old army tank at a VFW post. The cache owner reminded us to take a moment to remember and give thanks to those brave individuals that made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our country.

We found another one along a railroad among a stack of old rails and ties.

We had thought we would like to eat a nice dinner out at a restaurant tonight, but it seems like all of Bonita Springs had the same idea. Every place had people waiting outside. We decided that we were too hungry to wait, so we stopped in at our local grocery store and picked up some food that we could eat at home. Besides, both of us were just about melted from sitting in the sun at the game and we wanted to clean up and laze around for the remainder of the evening.