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As a kid growing up in the black and white era of Yankee baseball, I remember the films they showed of players reporting to Spring Training. Yogi, Whitey, Elston Howard, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle running in full dress uniforms out of that small boat house on the lake in Fort Lauderdale was all I knew about the event back then. It was a bunch of my childhood heroes getting ready to play the boy's game I knew and loved. In a word, it was perfect. As I got older, I always vowed that I would someday make the trip down to see a Spring Training game or two. But the rigors of the everyday grind never seemed to allow me to set the time aside, and getting to Florida to see the Yankees always had to take a back seat. That all changed a couple of years ago when I moved to Tampa.

I'll never forget the day we got here. My wife and I had just driven to Florida from California and were on our way to our new home just outside of Tampa. There was one task to perform before we go there, however. We had to stop a Legends Field in Tampa, spring training home for the New York Yankees, and purchase our Season Tickets. The kid in the ticket booth had seen it before. Middle aged men well past their athletic prime approaching the ticket window like a ten year old kid buying a ticket to a Harry Potter movie. Wide eyed. Full of excitement. Almost feeling guilty about the chance to do it. I asked him if there were many guys like me.

"Oh yeah!" He said. "I see a hundred old geezers like you every season!"

He took my five hundred bucks and gave me a receipt for the tickets I would get in the mail.

"Enjoy the season man!"

I nodded, eeked out a weak "thank you" and turned to my wife with an almost embarrassing grin. She understood. The kid must have been right about the old geezers though. When I turned around, I saw a bunch of guys like me wandering around the Legends Field monuments, some taking pictures of the plaques, some talking about the golden era, some even stopping to wipe a tear away in front of Thurman Munson's or Mickey Mantle's plaque. It was everything I wanted it to be. Like the black and white images on the Philco television set in 1960, it was perfect.

Today I purchased my third set of spring training season tickets. I'm almost a fixture there now. From that first day when pitchers and catchers report to the day they break camp to head north, I will be there. I will be watching as a new manager tries to work some new magic on his new team. I'll watch Jorge Posada bring his yearly fire and spirit to the new guys in the bullpen and on the field. I'll watch Joba prove to me that he's the best Yankee prospect since Derek Jeter. I'll wait with anticipation for that first magical moment when Mo Rivera takes the mound and reminds me what makes him the greatest closer of all time. But most of all, I'll sit and savor the moments when baseball is born again. When the sun shines on the greenest grass you've ever seen. When little kids line up along the pitchers training field to get a glimpse of their heroes...and maybe even an autograph. When that first hot dog and beer melt away the chill of winter. (Yes, it even gets cold in Tampa!) When the boys of spring training get ready to become the Boys of Summer...and hopefully of October. And unlike the days of the balck and white Philco, it's all in beautiful living color.

Learn more about this author, Dennis Damato.
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