Tag: Lee County Sports complex

My day at the ballpark today

I went out to the Lee County Sports Complex this morning and there was not much going on. There were a couple of players doing some special work with a couple of coaches but when I left around Noon there were no other Twins players working out. Not sure where everyone was.

I wandered off to the minor league side where there was more activity but still a relatively small group of pitchers going through fielding drills. I watched for awhile and decided that I had enough and wandered over to my car. As I was putting my camera equipment away I heard a loud bang on the top of my car, what the heck? It turned out one of the players had hit a long foul ball that hit my car. Fortunately it caused no damage but it did attract a lot of attention from bystanders. A Twins employee saw it happen and picked up the ball that had rolled about 10 yards away and gave it to me saying “here is culprit that hit your car”.

I left a few minutes later and exited the back way onto Plantation Boulevard. Right after I made a right turn on to Plantation a long home run ball from one of the adjacent fields came flying over the fence and netting and bounced in my lane about 20 yards in front of my car just missing my car. Had I been about a second or two quicker a ball would have hit my car for the second time in less than 5 minutes. What the heck is up with that? Of all the times I have gone to the complex my car has never even been close to being hit and here it almost happened twice in 5 minutes. I am sure the players got a kick out of it but I didn’t have time to look and see.

That is my excitement for today. The good news is that exhibition games start tomorrow. I was able to pick up a schedule of the minor league games that will be played at the complex and a first copy of the Twins Minor League Spring Training Roster. There are a handful of players on the roster born in 2004, my goodness. We will take the week-end off and go back again next week.

What’s up at the ballpark you say?

Taking down Luis Arraez

I made my first trip out to the Lee County Sports Complex Tuesday morning to see what is going on out there before Spring Training starts. I had hoped to get out there back in early January to take in some of the Twins Fantasy Camp games and chat with some former Twins players that serve as team managers and coaches but I had a nasty cold for about two weeks that just didn’t want to go away so I thought it best to stay away.

When I got out to the complex today it was a beehive of activity from trucks delivering office equipment, landscaping activities going on around the complex (which actually withstood Hurricane Ian back in late September fairly well), a cherry picker taking a huge Luis Arraez images down from above the ticket office, to major and minor league players working out on numerous fields.

Louie Varland

On my walk to the back fields I noticed a player heading towards me and he looked familiar but I just couldn’t place him, it turned out to be Louie Varland and I got his picture, wished him good luck and embarrassingly I forget to introduce myself. How dumb is that? I didn’t make that mistake on all the other players I met today. This time of the year no one is wearing uniforms with numbers so it is often very hard to know who is who. What surprised me I guess is how many players are already here with pitchers throwing on at least three fields. Catchers all over the place and one of those catchers was Christian Vazquez. Looks to me like Vazquez is going to be an easy player to like as today he signed autographs for a group of people and posed for a picture for me, even went to the trouble of taking off his catching gear first. He reminded us “that I am number 8 and not number 7” and everyone got a good laugh including Christian in an obvious reference to Joe Mauer.

I met a gentleman on the back fields from Indiana by the name of Robert McCammon who is a retired school teacher and now spends winters in Florida and works part-time at Hammond Stadium during Spring Training. He grew up a Washington Senators fan and is now a Twins fan and last year he published a book called Walter Johnson Had No Idea. Twins President Dave St. Peter wrote the Forward for the book. I have a copy of the book and am anxious to read it since I just wrapped up my latest Baldacci novel yesterday.

It was so nice to be at the complex on a nice sunny day with temperatures in the low 70’s and watching people catching and throwing a baseball around again. It is a fun time of the year, no one has lost a game, no one is injured yet, no pressure on anyone to make the team, no trade rumors flying around and everyone is happy and in a good mood. How can you not love baseball at this time of the year. I took a number of other pictures that I will share with you in the next few days.

Update on 2/8 – You can see the rest of the 2023 Spring Training pictures here.

Checking out the CenturyLink Sports Complex

Since I am here in SW Florida for a couple of weeks I thought I would stop by the Minnesota Twins spring training complex which has been renamed as the CenturyLink Sports Complex and see how thing are progressing on Phase II of the $48.5 million (Twins kicked in $6 million) remodeling effort.

The old Lee County Sports Complex sign at the entrance is gone and as of yet there is no new sign. The complex and a number of its fields are currently being used to host the Roy Hobbs World Series so there were a lot of cars in the parking lot with players and fans milling about. The stadium itself is a beehive of activity as you can see in some of the pictures I took while I was there. There is dust, dirt, and construction equipment everywhere.

When I looked around the fields I could see some players off in the distance with some Twins gear on running around on that new agility field that was built last year that has what looks like a little hill on it. There were about two dozen players running around throwing a basketball back and forth as they ran from one end to the other in groups of three. I didn’t recognize anyone off-hand  so I asked one of the guys that seemed to be running the exercise who the players were he grunted that they were some Twins minor league players going through rehab and he did not seem interested in chatting.

I then wandered over to the new minor league player dormitory and that is really a very cool building. Right now the building is also home to the Ft. Myers Miracle offices while work at the stadium continues. When you first walk in the door you are greeted by a security guard that is sitting at a desk that has a huge TC logo behind him that must be 10-12 feet tall. The area has a very high ceiling and the entire ceiling is a huge Twins logo, the pictures I took do not do it justice because it is just too big and I could not get far enough away to get a good picture.

The security guard was very nice and seemed very proud of the complex and he spent some time with me telling me all about it. He mentioned that the dormitory has 58 rooms and 54 of them are doubles for the minor league or rehab players. The other four are used to house management and one of the units is strictly for display to other organizations or teams that may be interested in seeing what the Twins have. I asked if I could get a quick tour of the main floor to take some pictures and he was very nice about it and took me around and explained things.

Our first stop on one end of the complex was the huge theatre type room that sits I think about 260-280 people and I believe it is called the Hall of Champions. It was dark in the room and difficult to get a good picture but it was pretty luxurious with some soft leather looking chairs. Some of the recent Twins meetings after the 2014 season ended used this room. It has several big screen TV’s as well as a huge pull-down display screen. As we wandered over to the other side of the complex we passed a very nice looking large  cafeteria that supposedly has some pretty good food. We then went on to the huge players recreation area that had TV’s, foosball tables, tennis tables, pool tables and a few other odds and ends. There are also various class rooms that are used for English classes and things like that. The walls are nicely decorated with uniforms of the various Twins teams ranging from rookie leagues to the major leagues and huge baseball cards of former Twins players similar to what you see at Target field. There is also a display of Twins bobble-heads and another display has the caps from all the Twins organizational teams. I did not go upstairs to see any of the dorm rooms but all in all it is a very impressive building and will serve the Twins and their players very nicely.

Randy RosarioWhile I was in the complex pitcher Randy Rosario wandered in and was kind enough to spend some time chatting with me. I sure wish I would have brought my little recorder but I did not bring it on this trip. Randy is one of the Twins players that is currently rehabbing from TJ surgery. When I asked Randy how he was doing he said he was doing great and will continue with his rehab for a couple more weeks before heading home for the holidays to the Dominican and then returning for spring training. I asked him if he would be throwing in spring training and he said that probably would not happen until April which is about 11 months out from his TJ surgery in May of this year. A nice chat, thank you Randy.

Twins pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to camp on February 22 and the rest of the team is scheduled to report on February 27. The Twins say that everything is on schedule with the remodeling and that it will be ready to go when they play the Boston Red Sox in their first official home exhibition game of the season on March 5. The actual first game at Hammond Stadium is the day before on March 4th when the Twins take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers. I added a link to the Twins 2015 Spring Training schedule on the right hand side of the home page. The pictures I took the other day can be seen on the 2014 CenturyLink Sports Complex remodel link.

Twins and Lee County agree on 30 year extension

The Minnesota Twins have signed a 30 year lease extension to continue to use the Lee County Sports complex as their spring training home on the assumption that Lee County will get $15 million from a state grant to help finance the expected $25 to $30 million in improvements.  Lee County Commissioners voted 4 -1 yesterday to sign the 30-year conditional lease with the Twins. Lee County and the Twins needed to sign this conditional lease prior to the exact details of the improvements being agreed upon because the $15 million state grant can only be used to retain a current baseball team and the county has to apply for the state grant before July 6.

Twins president Dave St. Peter

When Twins president Dave St. Peter was asked what improvements the team was looking for, he said “We are focused on general improvements surrounding fan amenities, player development and amateur sports.” When pressed for more details, St. Peter said he could not be more specific at this time. Rumor has it that the Twins are looking to add about a 1,000 seats, add some ballpark elevators, add a team dormitory and a player-development academy. When I asked the Twins president what the chances were that the county would get the state funds and when these improvements were expected to be completed, he replied that “he is optimistic that the county would get the state funds and that some improvements would be completed for 2014 and the balance in 2015.” Dave St. Peter went on to say that “we have eight (8) years remaining our current lease with two five-year team options. When asked about his thoughts about the rumored move of the Washington Nationals to Ft. Myers where they would use the old Boston Red Sox spring training complex, he had “no comment”.

The Twins have called Ft. Myers as their spring training home since 1991. The only other city that the Twins have used as a spring training facility was Orlando, Florida where they trained from 1961 through 1990. The Twins supposedly generate at least $25 million to $30 million per year from tourists traveling to Lee County, using the hotels, eating at the restaurants and going to games.