One Week Away

While the major league season is a day removed from official Opening Day and most teams have either played or are playing their first meaningful games today, the minor league season is officially less than a week away. The Tampa Yankees open their season this year in Lakeland against the Tigers hi-A affiliate. I had wanted to go but since my class got cancelled last night due to the awful weather, I now must go to class as not to miss anything substantial this late in the semester.

The Tampa Yankees home opener is Friday April 8th against Lakeland. The Tampa Yankees, Clearwater Threshers(phillies) Lakeland Flying Tigers and Dunedin Blue Jays are so close in relation to each others fields that they often split series at each others home park. Meaning that if Tampa is playing Clearwater, they won't always play all three games in Clearwater or Tampa but will maybe play one day in Tampa then the next two in Clearwater or some other variation. In this first series, Tampa will play away on Thursday and Saturday and at home on Friday and Sunday all against Lakeland.

I am planning on, weather permitting of course, going to the home opener. I am also planning on taking my cousins to the game in Lakeland on Saturday the 9th since they live out that way. I have been considering heading out to Clearwater on Sunday the 10th because they are having Bark in the Ballpark and I know how much my dog loves that, but I think I will go to the Tampa Yankees game if I cant get anyone to go out to Clearwater with me.

The last of the Yankees minor league spring training games are tomorrow. Low A Charleston and High A Tampa will be at the minor league complex while AA and AAA are away in Dunedin. If Dunedin wasn't so far away I would go out to get my last looks at Austin Romine, Jesus Montero and the rest of the upper level prospects. Ill just have to watch them on milb.tv which I am going to purchase for this minor league season. I am thinking that I will focus on Charleston since I will be seeing enough of Tampa this season. I also want to get closer looks at Cito Culver, Slade Heathcott and Gary Sanchez. If Brett Marshall pitches for Tampa, which he should, I will watch him and then turn to Charleston. I have thoroughly enjoyed the minor league spring training games. I like that there are so few people out there at the games and you can just sit and watch but I am really looking forward to when games start up again because games are much more enjoyable when you can know what is going on even when you might not have been paying attention to everything.

If I post tomorrow about the game then I probably wont post again until Tuesday night after the Tampa Yankees pizza party for the players, boosters and season ticket holders, I should get something interesting from that so look forward to it, and as always, thanks for reading :)