November Sunrise
02-27-2008, 02:42 PM
We pulled into the parking lot at the stadium in Lakeland last Friday morning just a little after 9am. There were around 30 cars in the general parking area and I was admittedly not paying real close attention as I was scanning the area for player sightings while simultaneously deciding where to park. As I prepared to drive back across the main strip in the parking lot I noticed a white pickup well off in the distance to my left. I looked the other way and began to creep across the drive. A few seconds later, after I had almost completed crossing the drive, I looked back to the left and noticed the white pickup was bearing down on me, and he we was coming extremely fast. About a second after I had gotten out of the way the truck came blitzing by at about as fast a speed as a person can possibly go in a parking lot. My oldest son then proclaimed "Dad!! We almost got ran over by Zumaya!:lol:. I don't know if his fastball is going to return, but I'm confident in reporting that he hasn't lost any aggressiveness when behind the wheel of his jacked up pickup. Incidentally, the back window of his truck has a decal that reads "Got Sand? - not certain what that means??
Other miscellaneous training camp observations:
1) Cabrera is a very physically imposing guy - for some reason I didn't anticipate that he would be so tall. He did not appear to be at all overweight. Watching him take batting practice is awesome - great power, it even sounds different coming off his bat when compared to most other hitters. If there's a negative, it's that no one's going to confuse him with Inge in the field - he made more errors in 30 minutes of fielding practice than the rest of the infielders combined.
2) Speaking of infield practice, if I had the ability to interpret Spanish, I believe it would have been a highly entertaining thing to listen to, as Cabrera and Guillen maintained a loud steady dialogue all throughout, punctuated with frequent chuckles and grunts. I had no idea what they were talking about but it was fun to listen to nonetheless.
3) While watching the pitchers interact and run poles in the outfield, I'd say that Verlander has officially become the leader of the pitching staff, not just as far as who is the best pitcher but in terms of who sets the tone with the group. On every sprint from one foul pole to the next he beat all of the other pitchers by at least five yards, and then would chastise the guys who were coming in at that rear. He is The Man.
4) The players were quite accessible after practice for the kids and fans who were seeking autographs, the facilities were top notch, it was 86 degrees - life truly can't get much better than a day at training camp in February, especially at a camp that has the talent level and expectation that these guys do this year.
Other miscellaneous training camp observations:
1) Cabrera is a very physically imposing guy - for some reason I didn't anticipate that he would be so tall. He did not appear to be at all overweight. Watching him take batting practice is awesome - great power, it even sounds different coming off his bat when compared to most other hitters. If there's a negative, it's that no one's going to confuse him with Inge in the field - he made more errors in 30 minutes of fielding practice than the rest of the infielders combined.
2) Speaking of infield practice, if I had the ability to interpret Spanish, I believe it would have been a highly entertaining thing to listen to, as Cabrera and Guillen maintained a loud steady dialogue all throughout, punctuated with frequent chuckles and grunts. I had no idea what they were talking about but it was fun to listen to nonetheless.
3) While watching the pitchers interact and run poles in the outfield, I'd say that Verlander has officially become the leader of the pitching staff, not just as far as who is the best pitcher but in terms of who sets the tone with the group. On every sprint from one foul pole to the next he beat all of the other pitchers by at least five yards, and then would chastise the guys who were coming in at that rear. He is The Man.
4) The players were quite accessible after practice for the kids and fans who were seeking autographs, the facilities were top notch, it was 86 degrees - life truly can't get much better than a day at training camp in February, especially at a camp that has the talent level and expectation that these guys do this year.