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Being from England my knowledge of Baseball is limited to movies that have featured it heavily. That would include ‘A League of Their Own’, ‘Fever Pitch’, ‘Field Of Dreams’ , ‘Major League’, ‘Bull Durham’ , ‘The Babe’ and the like.

Nevertheless this week saw the start of what is nicknamed ‘the Grapefruit League’ in Florida, or to give it its official name, ‘Spring Training’. In Major League Baseball spring training is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season.

So, if you’re in Florida you have the chance to see teams like the New York Yankees (in Tampa), Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins (in Fort Myers) and current World Series holders St. Louis Cardinals (in Jupiter) not forgetting Florida’s own Tampa Bay Devil Rays (in St. Pete) and the Florida Marlins (in Jupiter).

If you’re looking for game schedules and the best up to date ‘Grapefruit League’ news check local Florida papers and the teams own Spring Training pages.

News-Press (Fort Myers)for Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins news,
The Ledger (Lakeland) for Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians news,
Palm Beach Post (Palm Beach) for Florida Marlins, St.Louis Cardinals and New York Mets news,
Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Kissimmee) for Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros news,
Vero Beach Journal (Vero Beach) for LA Dodgers news,
TampaBay.com (Tampa, Clearwater, St. Pete) for Devil Rays, Philadelphia Phillies, and NY Yankees news,
Bradenton Herald for Pittsburgh Pirates news,
Florida Today for Washington Nationals news,
Herald Tribune (Sarasota) for Cincinnati Reds news,
Sun Sentinel for Baltimore Orioles news and the Globe and Mail (Dunedin) for Toronto Blue Jays news.

For general Spring Training news and info try Spring Training Tips, SpringTrainingOnline.com, and Florida Spring Training.

For tickets try and stick to the official club websites (see the links above) or you will end up paying premium prices at places like Stub Hub and Tickco.com. For instance tickets for the March 5th Red Sox v LA Dodgers game at Fort Myers City of Palms Park started at $32 and went up to $132 at Tickco. Official advertised prices were from $10 to $24.

Related Reading

Spring Training Blog (USA Today)
Fans Travel Guide to Spring Training (Yahoo News)
Baseball Blogs (BaseballBlogs.org)
Baseball Movies (BaseballMovies.com)
The Futility Infielder (Futility Infielder)
Spring Training (Wikipedia.org)

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