No Sox today, and considering the news of Beckett and his back spasms that’s probably a good thing. Instead we crossed the state and met up with the Dodgers in Jupiter, the spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Florida Marlins. Roger Dean Stadium is like a nicer, more modern version of Fort Myers. You’ve still got the fence with the ads, but Roger Dean also more seats and funnel cake.

Today was apparently Joe Torre reunion day. When he was having his media Q&A he had to take a break to chat with Red Schoendienst. Later, after sending out a bench coach to do the lineup exchange, Torre realized that Bob Gibson was handing over the lineup for the Cardinals. In a move I’ve never seen before, Torre relived the bench coach to say hello to “Gibbie.”

Sadly no Gammons today, instead Bill Parcells made a surprise appearance at the stadium. I didn’t feel the need to get verbally abused, so I avoided saying hello. In my mind the real press-box celebrity was sitting two booths down from Parcells, Vin Scully. Unlike Parcells, Scully is personable and happy to talk and when you hear that sweet southern drawl, you listen. Very few people sound better in real life than on TV or radio, but Scully is clearly the exception.

The Dodgers pounded the living shit out of the Cardinals. In one inning they got 7 runs on 3 hits. You read that right. I’m guessing the Cardinals won’t lead the league in WHIP this season. The final score was 20-6 and it wasn’t even that close.

Following the game we headed up to Vero Beach, home of Dodgertown. Even though I’m a Sox fan the truth is Dodgertown, not Fort Myers, was the real reason for this trip. You see, this will (probably) be the final year for the Dodgers to train in Dodgertown. They’ve been there for 50 years, so you can only imagine how much history these fields have seen.

My Dad had to do his show “Dodgertalk” from the stadium tonight. The stadium is awesome, even in the dark. When I pictured “Spring Training” I pictured this. Old wooden seats, tiny press box and the dugouts don’t even have overhangs. It’s like a little league field with 7000 seats around it. There are palm tree amongst the seats brining a new meaning to “obstructed view”.

Since the place was empty and dark, I snuck onto the field for a few minutes (those 2 feet fences aren’t going to stop me). Every Dodger pitcher since the franchise moved to Los Angeles has thrown off the mound in Dodgertown and now I can say I have as well. I went into the full windup and threw a perfect strike…or a ball three feet outside. But either way, I can now say I’ve thrown from the same mound as Koufax, Drysdale and from the more Sox inclined Derek Lowe and Pedro Martinez.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the largest crowd in the history of Dodgertown. The last day here will certainly be an interesting one.

Got to the ballpark a little later today due to the requisite breakfast stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts that’s around the corner from the ballpark. Living on the West Coast we’re isolated from DD, and there’s no that coffee tastes better. But we were clearly not the only Sox fans who needed their DD fix before the game…the place was packed with “B” hats. The scalpers have also figured this out. There were about four or five of them hanging out there waiting for the poor saps who show up without tickets. Good thing to remember if I’m one of those poor saps next time.

Not much was going on on the field when we got there, and since today’s game versus the Twins was a split-squad game, the clubhouse was pretty barren too. I heard that Bartolo Colon threw another side session today which I’d believe, he was walking around the clubhouse with an ice-pack on his shoulder.

As much fun as meeting some of the Sox players was yesterday, that can’t compare with today’s excitement. My Dad and I grabbed an open booth in the press box to watch the game and none other than the great Peter Gammons decided to join us in the booth to watch the game. He’s got to be the friendliest reporter I’ve ever met and was happy to talk baseball with us for six innings. The stories he’s got on people will just blow you away. I’ll even defer to his belief that following Dustin Pedroia around with a camera would make a better reality show than Clay Buchholz training at Josh Beckett’s house during the offseason.

But short of watching a game with my Dad, I can’t think of any better way to watch a game than with a running commentary from Gammons (and yes, I got both!). It’s like having the greatest color commentator of all time, but only for smart fans. For example, when Papelbon came into the game we were talking about his new $775k deal. Gammons give us this tidbit: Papelbon has the lowest ERA ever for a pitcher who’s pitched more than 150 innings. Funny how those types of interesting useful notes don’t come out of McCarver’s mouth. McCarver would have just reminded us that Papelbon looks mean when he pitches.

Because Gammons wasn’t cool enough for one game, Larry Lucchino came in to chat with Gammons. Lucchino seemed very friendly, and contrary to all the negative accounts you may read online, I’d be happy to be a character witness for him. (Sorry, nothing too funny or exciting from talking with him.)

As for the game itself, Buchholz looked bad from the first pitch when he nailed the batter with a fastball and gave up two home runs in two pitches later in the inning. Paps couldn’t care less about this game and didn’t seem to give a shit until he put runners at 1st and 3rd with one out. Okajima gave up one hit, but a bad error forced him to give up an unearned run. It’s a good thing they’ve got another month before the games count, because the pitching I’ve seen from the Sox so far has been less than impressive. On the flipside some guy name Liriano pitched to his first live batters since Tommy John surgery and looked GOOD.

Even though it means nothing, I can’t remember a game where I learned more. Sitting with your old man and possibly the biggest and most knowledgeable fan of the game is every dorky baseball nut’s dream.

Day one of Spring Training and life can’t be much better. It’s about 75 degrees here and a bit humid. The Sox could have held on to their three run lead in the top of the ninth instead of letting the Dodgers score seven, but unless I hear that Papelbon is being sent down to AAA in favor of Hunter Jones, I’m not too worried.

We arrived at the ballpark around 10:30AM and were extremely surprised to see an already sizable crowd at the stadium. I’ve never been to City of Palms Park before, so for everybody else, here’s a quick description:

• There’s a completely ridiculous statue of Ted Williams putting a cap on some little kids head. I want to see the statue where the kid says he works for the Globe.
• The stadium itself is equivalent to a very nice AAA or college park. Good seats, some grassy lawns down the 1st and 3rd base lines and the outfield fence is made up of square ads. Aside from the overwhelming number of Sox fans, don’t expect to be stepping into Fenway, there are no similarities.
• When they say “standing room only”, they’re not kidding.

Once we got into the stadium, we headed for the field. My Dad is hosting the post-game Dodger radio shows, so we made a stop in the Dodgers’ locker room. Nothing too exciting there; the Dodgers didn’t bring a full-squad to Fort Myers. And while I wish that I could say that Mattingly and Torre were complete jackasses, they were both very friendly, and happy to chat.

We made it onto the field as the Sox BP was winding down. The ESPN crew was chatting with the players near the cage. The area around the cage is apparently reserved only for ESPN. I understand that Peter Gammons should have full range of access, because, well, he’s Peter Gammons (who is, by the way, the friendliest member of the media), but Steve Phillips? Come on! He couldn’t predict something correctly if you gave him Marty McFly’s sports almanac from Back to the Future 2.

Sox players seemed to be in a pretty good mood. Nobody pouting (although we didn’t see Papelbon). Maybe the highlight of the trip so far was getting to shake Manny’s hand. He clearly didn’t want to talk, but was nice enough in his b-line from the batting cage to the clubhouse to drop his bats and shake my hand. I wish I could tell you all that he spit on his hands first or something for a true “Manny being Manny” moment, but I’ll take it. (If it was Moises Alou, he wouldn’t have spit…)

We followed the beat reporters into the clubhouse. It’s strange at Spring Training because most of the normal routines are broken. The first one being the ability to go into the clubhouse after BP. Also, a number of players are changing back into their street clothes because they’re done for the day. If a regular starter isn’t in the starting lineup, he’s probably got a 1pm tee time.

Youks and Alex Cora (who permanently lost the “Lil’” prefix when he turned out to be exactly my height) both were happy to shoot the shit for a few minutes. Youks always looks angry and very intimidating while by the batting cage, but when talking to him he was very down to earth. I recommended that he take a sleeping pill on the flight back from Japan to which he told me that the doctors “take good care of them.” Let’s just hope Brian McNamee hasn’t gotten into the team doctors’ supply of Ambien.

As for the game itself, D-Lowe looked like crap, Ellsberry made a great catch in center and got his first hit of the spring (a ground rule double) in the bottom of that inning, and the rest of the starters looked pretty solid. Pitching-wise it wasn’t as much fun. Wakefield managed to get control of his knuckler and make a couple of Dodgers look very foolish but Timlin was far from sharp along with Craig Breslow who was trying to walk the entire Dodger lineup.

Even 2000 miles south of Fenway, they still play Sweet Caroline in the middle of the 8th inning. Oh, oh, oh was replaced by the sounds of the snoring old people in the stands.

The Sox still entered the top of the ninth with a 5-2 lead. Hunter Jones, a non-roster invitee, got the first out and then gave up a hit before Argenis Diaz booted a double-play ball. Jones then followed that up with a game-tying homer to May. To top that off, the Sox pulled him to bring in Lee Gronkiewicz who hit a batter and then served up a grand-slam to Jason Repko. I would have been more pissed if a) this game meant something and b) Repko hadn’t been so courteous as to try to learn the names of both my Dad and myself rather than just giving us a Manny “hi.”

Tomorrow we head back to the City of Palms Park before taking off for Jupiter and finally Vero Beach. I promise to get pictures up tomorrow, I’ve got them on my camera but forgot a usb cable to download them to my computer.

Just arrived in Fort Myers. After weaving through the maze of wheelchairs getting off the plane, we made it to the hotel and went across the street to get some food. As if I wasn’t already excited enough to be here sitting in the booth next to us at dinner was none other than D-Lowe. I was going to send him a beer, but he’s supposed to be pitching tomorrow which means he’d then want a couple of shots too. So I decided to pass.

Tomorrow, D-Lowe vs. the Sox.

If you’re a Sox fan you’ve probably seen this clip already, but it’s too damn funny not to post here as well. Of course, if the event kills Tito after he just signed an extension, it’s not nearly as funny:

“I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” Francona said. “My chest hurt, I was laughing so hard. Pedroia is a moron. You can write that. He is a moron. He was dancing, he looked like a puppet on a string. He’s such a little gamer, but he’s looking over knowing we were crushing him. He’s drinking the Red Bull. He’s exhausted. He’s trying to do these things with this girl he’s not strong enough to do. It was hilarious.”

Over the next couple of days I’ll be heading out to Fort Myers, Jupiter and finally Vero Beach to catch some Sox and Dodgers games. I promise not only posts, but also pictures. Spring is finally here!