Fever

It's that time of year when fevers abound. Boy home with a fever today...check. Spring fever...check. Baseball fever...double check. What, you've never heard of baseball fever? Oh...it's a tough one to shake. And once you've had it, it recurs every Spring. Mine returned full force last week when the Twins reported to spring training. Baseball news in the paper everyday. Signing new players...or used players...games starting in a couple days. Thinking about Florida and how nice it would be there about now. And we're stuck here in reality in the frozen tundra trying to figure out how to cure that baseball fever.

Hmmm...can we say dome? No, not the Metrodome...the E.P. dome. Billy's been doing baseball clinics every other Sunday this winter. I've never gone to watch...but Sunday I was home and feeling like I needed to get a little tiny fix of baseball.

So I asked him if I could go and watch for a little bit. He said that I could as long as I didn't follow him around. :-) I could agree to that.

I did feel very stupid walking in there with my camera...but I decided that it didn't matter...it was baseball. Boys throwing balls. Boys hitting balls. Boys running around. The snap of the ball hitting the mitt, the ping of the bat hitting the ball...yes, the crack of a wooden bat would have been better, but this was still good.

They get into groups of 10-12 boys and rotate from station to station. There are batting cages, base running drills, relay drills...and I'm not sure what else because I wasn't allowed to follow him around.

There are coaches, assistant coaches, just plain assistants, and some high school kids that help out too. I think that the coaches are trying to find a cure their baseball fever too.

It's fun to see how much some of the boys have grown since last summer. It's also funny how their mannerisms don't change with time and you can spot the ones you know from across the field without really even seeing their faces. They do seem a little more serious this year.

My pictures in the dome don't turn out very well, and I was sort of hiding behind the net...but it was fun to be there for a little bit. And fun to absorb the sights and the sounds.

This guy is always eager to help...he must have baseball fever too. Add some warm summer sun and the smell of grass and that fever might start to fade away.

But for now the dome and some astro turf will have to last for just a little longer. Winter sure seems long in Minnesota.

But life is short...play ball!