Dodgertown
For baseball fans, spring training is a time of hope, a fresh start for teams that perennially dwell in the cellar and for those who fell just short of the mark during the previous season. However, for the people of Vero Beach, Florida there will be no hope, for the former spring home of the Los Angeles Dodgers there will be no baseball this year.

Lured by a lucrative offer including a brand spanking new training facility, the Dodgers will report this spring to their new venue in the city of Tucson, Arizona, a short hop from their California home. Unable to entice another major league team to adopt the complex, Dodgertown will fall silent this spring, a vacant memorial of the games past glory.

The day after Christmas, my wife, son and I loaded up the car and made the long journey to Vero Beach for a baseball camp/tournament, sponsored by Under Armor and staged by The Baseball Factory, an organization which specializes in helping coach and train high school aged players who aspire to play college ball upon graduation. We were told that this four day event would be the last baseball contest held at Dodgertown. When we left, the doors of Dodgertown would be closed, perhaps forever.

Growing up as a fan of the New York Mets, I had never been to Dodgertown and, frankly, never really thought of going. The Dodgers moved to California from Brooklyn the year I was born and I never developed a love for the team that skipped town while I was developing my pitching delivery in my mother's womb. Yet my inner baseball historian was shaken and awakened by the prospect of walking the same grounds once graced by Jackie Robinson and Sandy Koufax.

What I found at Dodgertown was both beautiful and sad. The fields are beyond the wildest dreams of anyone who has ever raked an infield. The father of one of the players remarked that if his lawn in Staten Island looked like any of the fields at the facility, he would "protect it with a shotgun." If there is baseball in heaven then the fields must be modeled after Dodgertown. My wife and I spoke to two of the groundskeepers who were still primping the turf as if the World Series were to be played at Dodgertown the following day. The older of the two gentlemen was finishing his forty-second year on the complex grounds crew, the younger man had grown up helping his bad build pitching mounds since he was nine years old. They spoke of the days when the players used to stay in an old army barracks, sans air conditioning, and rest beneath the palms between drills. We were treated to an hour-long history lesson covering the fields, the Dodgers, and the lives of the grounds crew. Through this wonderful walk through the unwritten archives, I noticed an underlying sadness, it was hard to miss. Like so many of us lately, these great folks would be losing not only their jobs, but a cherished piece of their past as well.

Cooks, wait-staff, administrative workers and housekeeping employees would all meet similar fates. Everyone went about their work as if it was business as usual, player rooms were spotless (until the teenaged occupants returned from the fields covered with dirt), and meals of the highest caliber were served. Two hundred players from all over the country were treated like big leaguers by a staff that never failed to smile despite their impending unemployment



Amidst the suppressed sorrow of the Dodgertown staff, sixteen compiled baseball teams were battling each moment on the field. The instruction was second to none and the seminars and guest speakers carried the spirit of the camp through the night once the stadium lights were dimmed. Will's teammates were from New England, New York, Florida, Nebraska, Virginia, and California, all focused to perform. Competition and emotions were high.

I am not sure the players were aware of what was happening around them, and maybe that was a good thing. A piece of baseball history was coming to a close, a sixty-year love affair between a team and a town was now over, yet the joy of baseball continued on as the tournament wound to its conclusion.

Will's team had the honor of playing the final few outs of the event in a game that stretched into extra innings. Short of pitching, Will (a catcher by trade) volunteered to throw the final frame. The count was two balls and two strikes with two outs, when Will coaxed a soft pop-up to shortstop which was gloved by a lanky kid from Courtland, New York for the final out. It would be the last out recorded at Dodgertown.

The game ended in a 5-5 tie and players smiled as they shook hands. Teammates said their goodbyes, exchanged phone numbers and packed-up their gear.

The few days spent in Dodgertown were special in many ways. I met a group of hard working people whose pride never faltered for a second despite their situation. Each element of this historic site remained perfect right up to the last moment and I felt privileged to share that moment with them.

Leaving the grounds I thought of all of the great players who perfected their game on those very fields and the young players I had just seen working towards that same goal of perfection. This parallel seemed to be the perfect end for this small slice of baseball heaven. I even think the ghosts of Dodgertown might have approved.