Looking for a Great Gift?

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Recap of Cardinals Camp- Monday February 22

As I was driving down and across Florida to go to Marco Island for the day, I stopped in to check out the Marlins and Cardinals spring training camp in Jupiter. They both share the same facility, but it is a solid 15 minute walk between the 2 facilities, or a short trolley ride. We parked over in the Marlins side of camp and walked over to the Cardinals side.

When you first enter the Cardinals camp, you only have access to 2 fields, then have to walk around another field to get access to 4 other fields. There was very little security/people to ask where to go (I'm comparing this to the plentiful security guards at Tradition Field), and it was more just follow where everyone else was walking.



I saw the last few pitches of Jason Motte's bullpen from across a parking lot. Couldn't see enough to gauge how he was throwing, although from this picture below I would be worried about a potential arm injury in his future (that's a lot of scapular loading/increased pressure on the anterior portion of the shoulder).







 The largest crowd was gathered around the field where Mark McGwire was watching a couple minor leaguers take batting practice and he really seemed comfortable and enjoying it.



The field next to him a couple of the infielders where taking ground balls, and D Freese was taking fungoes from Tony La Russa. Such a stark contrast to Jerry Manuel just walking around all day talking and smiling with the fans...

 
D Freese looked very comfortable defensively, and showed good hands and nice footwork going in the hole, as well as back-handed plays. 
 

There were probably 50-70 fans there, a pretty good amount for a weekday.  I did feel like the Cardinals were accomplishing more at this point in spring training than the Mets were (Mets infielders were just fielding ground balls right at them, not requiring very much range or footwork).

And this was my favorite picture of the day (no one else was sporting the stirrups).

 

Hope you enjoyed a different perspective; it definitely was enjoyable for me to see how another team runs their spring training vs the Mets.

No comments:

Post a Comment