Grapefruit League Road Trip: A Guide to Spring Training in Florida (SIGNED)

Describes the location and facilities of each major league baseball team's spring training headquarters, and offers advice on sightseeing in each region of Florida

This book serves as orientation to the ritual beginning of the annual baseball season: spring training, which takes place from the second week of February through the end of March. Coleman and Valenti cover the 18 teams that train for six weeks in Florida (the rest train elsewhere in the Sunbelt), tracing the custom back to the late 1800s and telling why Florida was chosen, among other historical notes. The authors describe the complexes where each team works out, disclose which hotels the players stay at, provide maps of each spring training town. Sprinkled throughout is wonderful baseball spring training lore, such as the story about Cesar Cedeno, who while chasing a ball, came across a snake and immediately ran into the clubhouse. The last portion of this volume contains an explanation of how to keep score, along with blank scorecards for exhibition games and several empty pages for autographs.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The enthusiastic authors share the bubbly optimism and self-renewel felt by baseball players and fans who annually head to Florida for spring training. However, this guidebook strikes out. There are too few anecdotes about the atmosphere of games and ballparks at the host citiesfrom Bradenton on the Gulf Coast to Ft. Lauderdale on the Atlantic. The lists of hotels, attractions, and restaurants are done better by bona fide tour books. In fact, a more thorough, enjoyable account of baseball's spring ritual is David Falkner's The Short Season (LJ 5/15/86). Tom Reigstad, Buffalo State Coll., SUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.