My first ever Spring Training baseball trip brought me down to Orlando, Florida, where I would visit who else but my Atlanta Braves first? To be honest, Spring Training had never been really high on my priority list, but the idea of taking in some new places, hanging with some friends and most importantly, simply getting away from the routine grind of normalcy made this trip possible.
Although I did enjoy the experience of seeing the Braves’ spring facilities and have zero regrets about making the trip, I have to say that I wasn’t really too big on the place as a whole. I kind of had a preconceived idea that I might not like it, because the Braves spring facility is located on Disney property, and where there’s Disney property, there’s bound to be massive crowds, a logjam of people, and kind of a hectic atmosphere, all of which turned out to be the case.
Don’t get me wrong, the Wide World of Sports, the training fields and Champion Stadium were all undoubtedly beautiful bastions of optimism and hope for the coming of a new baseball season, and the architecture and the visuals were all Disney perfect and expensively maintained. But that’s really just not my cup of tea. I like my ballparks spacious and lacking in attendance, which turns into a relaxed atmosphere, where I don’t have to worry about being watched like a hawk where I sit, and can freely roam and wander without the hassle of getting bumped into or stopped by the spatially challenged who stop abruptly in the middle of a crowd.
Anyway this is just a photo dump, so there’s little reason for me to be so verbose. Those words will likely be found in greater detail when I inevitably, and excitedly update my ballparks sub-website for the first time this season.
