Baseball at Disney World.
It just sounds wrong. And believe me, it is. Last Sunday, yours truly, accompanied by Pork Chop, Poop and Amy (sounds like a helluva cast, huh?—sometimes I wonder where I meet these people) decided to attend a Spring Training game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves. To do this, we had to drive into the beast of all beasts: Disney World. Now, I hate Disney for many reasons that I won’t get into here, primarily because my reasons aren’t funny. But I still had a good time despite the fact that these bastards made Spring Training feel like a trip to the mall.
You see, one of the coolest things about Spring Training facilities is that they feel a little bit like the cities that host them. If you catch a Yankees game in Tampa, you can almost feel the fact that you’re in a real Florida city with a median age below forty and actual working stiffs. It’s evident in the architecture, the traffic screaming by the stadium and the white collars of many of the attendees. If you catch a game in St. Petersburg, you can feel the relaxed nature of the berg, which is defined in part by the sounds of million dollar yachts and the ocean breeze that floats in right off the beach. If you catch a game in Lakeland, Florida, you are easily reminded that these people are country rednecks. You can buy barbecue from five different local restaurants and they jam country music over the loudspeakers. Well, in Orlando, you get to feel the city as well. They’ve got a typical behemoth of a sports bar next door, and the stadium is located in some kind of bizarre shopping plaza/sports complex (that was actually hosting a cheerleading competition on Sunday) and the parking lot stretches for miles. The lines are ridiculously long everywhere and well, you just don’t get that homey, relaxed feel that Spring Training provides. In other words, you feel like you’re at freaking Disney World.
You see, this wasn’t Spring Training for the Atlanta Braves. This was (as signs constantly reminded us) Disney’s Spring Training.
The bastards.
Now, I’m not some kind of baseball purist, but for the love of God, do we have to commercialize everything down to a freaking nub? I mean, can’t they leave the most relaxed games of one of the more relaxed sports the hell alone? Is it that hard to create an environment for real fans, or is selling tickets the main priority here?
Sigh. Don’t answer that.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go drink a beer out of my novelty Mickey Mouse ears (only $11.95 per ear—what a steal?).
Fucking Orlando.