Grapefruit League Road Trip

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. (February)