Red Sox-Twins night game kicks off Grapefruit season

By David Dorsey
Fort Myers News Press

The spirit of generosity, sportsmanship and good will seemed to flow
toward and within the new right-field section of seats Wednesday night at
City of Palms Park as spring training began in Southwest Florida.

An hour before Boston Red Sox ace Curt Schilling threw the first pitch of
this Grapefruit League season — to Minnesota Twins second baseman Luis
Castillo at 7:06 p.m. — a light downpour cooled the temperature to 73
degrees.

The first of a capacity 7,707 fans, which does not include the
standing-room-only crowd, filtered into the ballpark at 4:30 p.m., when a
ceremony dedicating the Ted Williams statue outside the entrance took
place.

Reciting a poem from heart, a version of "Casey at Bat" adapted to fit the
legendary Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams, Dick Flavin, 70, delivered
the final line with a fist pump.

“And the crowd goes wild at Fenway Park,” Flavin said, “because Teddy hit
one out!”

The aroma of bratwursts, hot dogs and Shan-san rolls — they've got
crabmeat and cream cheese, topped with eel sauce and a spicy Japanese
mayonnaise — filled the air.

Like following the feather in the movie “Forrest Gump,” observers could
watch the path of a baseball and the lives that crossed its path prior to
the game.

The ball, thrown by a Twins coach, hit by a Twins player and fielded by an
outfielder, was then tossed to Al Slothower, a 40-year-old Atlanta native
vacationing in Fort Myers.

Spotting a 13-year-old Red Sox fan several stools down, Slothower handed
it to the kid.

They were sitting on two of the 96 new barstools on the right-field deck,
replicas of the stools found above the famed left-field Green Monster wall
at Fenway Park in Boston.

Families and friends seemed to fill this new section. Those who didn't
know each other introduced each other during the 4-4, 10-inning game.

Slothower and his friend Michael Bushman, soon to be 40, watched the game
from the front row.

“I’m a Yankee fan, but I want to keep that quiet,” said Bushman, who took
in the first of many baseball games this year.

Bushman, a banker and a sailor, quit his job, bought a 25-foot-long yellow
school bus, renovated it into a mobile home and will travel the country
this year in search of the nation's best hamburger. He also will cram in
as many baseball games as he can.

“I guess you can call it a mid-life crisis,” Bushman said.

The journey, at least baseball-wise, started here.

“This is the year of the bus,” said Bushman, who will travel to Tampa on
Thursday and catch his beloved Yankees in action Friday at Legends Field.

On Wednesday, Bushman said he was just fine with watching his favorite
team’s archrival, the Red Sox.

While Bushman and Slothower each finished a beer, the Hay family talked of
their pilgrimage to Fort Myers several stools down.

“This is our first time here,” said Stephen Hay, 51.

A native of Fitchburg, Mass., Hay lives 35 miles west of Boston. He even
played, as a 13-year-old, in Boston Garden, former home of the Boston
Celtics.

“I got to play on that court,” he said. “And I still remember it like it
was yesterday.”

Hay first went to Fenway Park at age 8 in 1963. It took 44 years for him
to finally see the Red Sox in spring training. That dream came true
Wednesday night as he walked past the Williams statue and through the
turnstiles.

Twins fans also were thrilled to take in the first game. Minnesota plays
its first spring home game at 7:05 p.m. Friday against the Cincinnati Reds
at Hammond Stadium.

Thomas Hodne Jr., who has season tickets at Hammond Stadium this spring,
will celebrate his 39th birthday for the 41st time on May 14, he said.

With the silver hair and beard, he resembled a skinnier version of Santa
Claus.

Hodne Jr. used to watch the Twins train in Orlando, their spring
headquarters from 1961 through 1990. He changed his February-March
destination to Fort Myers in 1991, when the team relocated to the Lee
County Sports Complex in south Fort Myers.

“I gave up alcohol in 1975,” Hodne Jr. said. “My addiction was alcohol and
architecture.

“Now, my addiction is baseball, and I’m a Diet Cokaholic.”

Twins catcher Joe Mauer hit the first home run of spring training, a
three-run blast in the top of the fifth inning.

That ball sailed over the left-field fence, so the fans in the new
right-field section didn't get a chance to retrieve it.

That suited Griffen Hay, 13, just fine. Two hours earlier, a stranger
named Slothower handed him a ball — a ball relayed from outfielder, from
bat, from Twins batting-practice coach.

Play ball, indeed.

Originally posted on March 01, 2007