Spring training for the Nachoboy

Yesterday marked our first, and probably last, excursion to a Cardinals spring training game. Three years ago, my wife and sidekick Burrito Girl proposed heading to Florida for spring break. I suggested we head to Jupiter, located just north of the Miami-Lauderdale-West Palm Beach megalopolis, for a couple of reasons: (1) Jupiter is relatively close to the Nachoman’s former haunt of Boca Raton, and (2) Jupiter is the spring home of two major league teams, the Cardinals and the Marlins. The idea was, with two teams in town, I’d be able to see a game every day if I wanted to, with or without the Nachoboy, while Burrito Girl got to stay on the beach as she wished. The vacation was a success; we’ve been back to Jupiter three times now.

I no longer go to major league baseball games very often, because of the enormous financial and time commitment necessary nowadays. I think I’ve been to two games in the past decade. But back in the day, when I lived a few miles from Riverfront Stadium, I might decide to go to a game 45 minutes before the first pitch. I’d buy walk-up tickets in the upper deck behind home plate for four bucks. For dinner, I’d buy hot dogs for $1 each.* Total commitment: less than 5 hours and about 7 dollars per person. According to the inflation calculator, that works out to about $13 in today’s money to completely cover attendance at a meaningful game.

At yesterday’s spring training game, my ticket alone for the grass berm in right field cost $15. Hot dogs were $3.50 each. For friggin’ SPRING TRAINING.

Three years ago, those same grass berm tickets were only $8. I took the then-3-year-old Nachoboy a few times, knowing that he would be more interested in roaming around the stadium and eating dippin’ dots ice cream than in watching the game. But that was okay, ‘cause I didn’t care about a preseason game any more than he did. He only lasted about three innings each time, but the combination of the gameday atmosphere, the large number of fans at the game and at our hotel wearing Cardinals jerseys (Nachoboy has recognized ornithological cardinals since he was two), and the baseball he was given by the nice bullpen catcher turned him into a Cards fan.

It’s still nice to be around so many Cardinals fans. But for $15 each plus hot dog and ice cream, it becomes ever more annoying when the boy decides in the fourth inning that it’s too hot outside and he wants to go home.

And this is why I won’t take him to an actual major league game. The cost would be astronomical; traveling to a big-league stadium is no longer trivial for me; and if I’m going to go through the trouble to get to a game, I want to keep a scorecard and pay attention to everything around me. That’s tough to do with a six-year-old along.

So, was this game worth the $62 we spent for three tickets and sundries? Probably not, but consider what we saw. Not just three innings of spring training baseball, which was rather boring – Adam Wainwright works extra-slow with a man on base; the Cardinals defense is beyond poor, as I observed two nominal errors plus two further failed plays that were not officially scored errors.

The big news was the skinny bleached blonde girl in the section next to ours. She asked for and was granted permission to approach the bullpen players from the grass berm area. She handed a scrap of paper to the nearest Cardinal, who smiled, and passed it along the line. Every player trained his eyes on this girl as she walked back to her seat, while the ultimate recipient of the paper earned nudges and smirks from his teammates.

They say you see something new every time you go to a baseball game, and in this case they're right.

NM

*One of only three positive aspects of Marge Schott’s legacy was that she absolutely insisted on capping the price of hot dogs at $1. The 14 year old Nachoman on a limited budget considered even $1 to be somewhat expensive.