After what felt like years in NM (only because it was literally freezing there) we once again pointed our home south and arrived back in AZ for spring training!! We had to allow for a quick trip home to close on our house we had for 17 years and then it was a flight back to warm and sun and SPRING TRAINING BASEBALL, Cactus League style!! :) The Gilliams are huge baseball fans. We have taken a trip to Cooperstown, we count "Major League", "Litte Big League", "The Sandlot" and many other baseball movies among our all time favorites. So, it is fitting that Spring Training baseball has been on our bucket list. The kid is a baseball fan as well (of course) so she managed to take in a few games with us in between classes. Such a great way to spend family time! Our goal was to hit all the stadiums in the league. This was a fun task and it helped a little bit because a few of the clubs share a stadium. We traveled a little bit for a few of the games. Some of the fields were about an hour and half away and a few were only within 10-20 minutes. I managed to get some pictures to document our time. Gary was a Stub Hub machine, scouting the stadiums before hand to see where the shade would be (important since the temps reached 100 or so for some of the games) and unbeknownst to us until we got to the games a few times, we got some of the best seats in the house! We sat right behind the Angel's dugout at their field, right behind home plate at The Tribe's field and a couple of the games we got to sit in the VIP areas thanks to knowing the right people. ;) We never did catch a fly ball but we did manage to pick up a Nolan Ryan jersey signed by him! WOOHOO!!
The teams in the Cactus League are:
San Francisco Giants
Los Angeles Dodgers
Los Angeles Angels
Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Socks
Texas Rangers
Oakland A's
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies
Milwaukee Brewers
Seattle Mariners
Cleveland Indians
Cincinnati Reds
Kansas City Royals
San Diego Padres
Gary's favorite team is The Mets, mine is The Yankees and Taylor's is The Phillies but we all managed to always have a team to root for despite none of our team's being in this league. The reasoning for rooting for a certain team was pretty funny some of the games. For instance, Tay and I rooted for the Brewers because we liked their little doggy stuffed pet mascot in their team store. :) I rooted for The Tribe because I love the movie "Major League". We all rooted for The Mariners because their catcher is Carlos Ruiz (aka Chooch) who started with the Phillies back in the day when we would go watch the Phillies at least once a year. :) We had such a great time!! For sure a memory that will be cherished forever!! Can't wait for next year!! :)
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