{"id":38811,"date":"2014-04-01T00:05:21","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T04:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=38811"},"modified":"2020-07-11T00:05:32","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T04:05:32","slug":"photos-port-st-lucie-florida-tradition-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=38811","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Port St. Lucie, Florida \u2013 Tradition Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The second leg of my Spring Training baseball travels took me from busy touristy Orlando, down to the sleepy, seemingly retirement community of Port St. Lucie, Florida.\u00a0 It was a pleasant reprieve from the traffic and endless gauntlet of toll roads in Orlando.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the fact that Tradition Field is the home to the stinking Mets, I actually really liked the place, even over the Braves\u2019 Champion Stadium.\u00a0 This really isn\u2019t that big of a surprise, considering the exorbitant extravagance that was a ballpark in Orlando, compared to a smallish baseball venue out in Port St. Lucie.<\/span><\/p>\n

The funniest thing about Tradition Field is that being home to the Mets, the general area around Port St. Lucie appears to be crawling with northern transplants, and lots of tourists from New Jersey and New York.\u00a0 And despite being in a sleepy old Florida coastal town, we were subjected to some very New York-like mannerisms, like having to actually pay to park in a deserted grass field, and being accosted by ticket scalpers, at a Spring Training exhibition game that doesn\u2019t actually count.\u00a0 You can take the scumbags out of New York but you can\u2019t take the New York out of the scumbags.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Regardless, the visit to PSL was pretty awesome.\u00a0 My boy James and I got blitzed, and spent an inordinate amount of time yelling at retired Livan Hernandez, but it about made our days that he was cool enough to roll with the punches and banter back. \u00a0He may have been a Braves killer for the vast majority of his career (both against,\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0as a member of the team), but I\u2019ll be damned if I\u2019m not a Livo fan for life.<\/span><\/p>\n