Reporting to the Fort

Thursday, February 26, 2015 – JetBlue Park, Ft. Myers

Spring Training Workout

I flew into Ft. Myers last night, happy to escape the brutal Boston winter.  While I was originally worried about snow delaying my departure, this morning it seemed that rain would spoil my chance to see the players.  In past years we’ve had days where outdoor practice was canceled due to bad weather and the players worked out indoors out of sight of the fans.  But we lucked out as the rain held off long enough to get in a full practice.  We watched a lot of live batting practice, where pitchers throw to their teammates, as well as regular B.P. where coaches lob them in and hitters can really start to work on their timing.  I also ended up with autographs from Clay Buchholz, Deven Marrero, Christian Vazquez, Brock Holt, and Daniel Nava.  Here are my favorite photos from the day:

Laser Show gets ready, along with Mike Napoli, to bat against Clay Buchholz.

Panda sighting! We watched him bat against Wade Miley.

It's always a fun day when Big Papi's in the house.

One thing's for sure - all these nice new helmets won't be this shiny in October.

Rick Porcello threw live B.P. to Hanley Ramirez and David Ortiz.

We found a familiar face watching live B.P. alongside John Farrell. Tek's in camp as a special instructor.

As the players finished batting practice, they joined first base coach Arnie Beyeler for some more instruction.

Mike Napoli's beard is coming in nicely after his off-season jaw surgery.

Chili Davis is the Sox' new hitting coach, but I still think of him as that guy who got the hit in Pedro's 17-K 1-hitter in New York in 1999.

Brandon Workman and Christian Vazquez walk in after their session.

Just as we headed back to our car, the first drops of rain started falling.  It was steady enough to mean we couldn’t go to the beach or even the pool in the afternoon, but it didn’t stop us from getting orange soft serve ice cream at Sun Harvest Citrus a few miles down the road from the ballpark.  Considering it was -13° at my house in Massachusetts one morning earlier this week, I’ll certainly take it!