Last week I stopped off at the CenturyLink Sports Complex for a couple of hours to see what was going on if anything and to see what players may have already shown up to get a jump on spring training. I have not been out earlier this year because the weather here in SW Florida has been a bit strange this year. A couple of weeks ago we had a tornado about a mile from the condo in Cape Coral and a few days later they had another tornado touch down in Ft. Myers not too far from Page Field. Cape Coral which is just across the river from Ft. Myers has had almost 13″ of rain in January and they average under 2″ of rain, so it has been a wet January. February has started out cool and windy (for this area anyway) with temperatures in the low to mid 60’s and our average is 75 for this time of the year.
When I got to the ballpark there were a couple of people buying spring training game tickets as I headed towards the back fields where I would expect to find the action if there was going to be any. You couldn’t help but hear the music blaring from the minor league clubhouse and there was probably about a dozen players out on the fields, some running, some doing some infield and others were shagging some fly balls. I didn’t see any throwing but I heard that Glen Perkins had done some throwing before I arrived. As always it is hard for me to identify a lot of these guys because many are minor league players and others may be players from other organizations that live in the area and stop by to work out. I did see Miguel Sano, Oswaldo Arcia, Adam Walker doing some outfield work but I saw no hitting. I met Buck Britton who is a 29-year-old free agent minor leaguer the Twins signed and plays the infield and some outfield and he has spent most of his career in the Orioles organization but played in AAA for the Dodgers in 2015. Britton has no big league experience.
There was a handful of fans getting autographs and pictures and the players were more than willing to spend time with everyone. Miguel Sano was more than just patient when a couple approached him for pictures and the gentleman stood next to Sano and his wife was supposed to take their picture but she had no idea how to use the cell phone camera. She tried and tried and about five minutes later her significant other had enough and he had her pose with Sano while he took her picture. The entire time Miguel just smiled and tried to be helpful, he was more patient than I would have been. Other than that there was not much else to write home about. I will be back again later this week and see what’s up now that TwinsFest is done and training camp is just a couple of weeks away.
I took a few pictures that you can check out on the right hand side of this page under the title of 2016 spring training pictures. As I said earlier, I did not identify all the players so if you can help out feel free to do so.