While JetBlue Park, the spring training site of the Boston Red Sox in Fort Myers, Florida, is sometimes called Fenway South and has the same dimensions of the fabled Beantown home park that opened in 1912, it’s not an exact replica. There is a copy of the Green Monster left field wall, with seating on top and inside it, but it’s actually six feet higher than the original.
All the more impressive, I was roaming around the park in 2019 and went to the top of the Green Monster just as then-little known New York Met named Pete Alonso came to bat. Alonso proceeded to clout a ball to outer space, clear over my head, well out of the park and far into the practice fields beyond the stadium. What else could be said but: Who is this guy?
Turns out that Alonso would go on to win National League Rookie of the Year honors that year and become a four-time All-Star, along with being a two-time Home Run Derby champion.
Such are the joys of attending spring training games: discovering new players, rookies and aging veterans hoping to latch onto the parent club, everyone getting out the kinks in a more relaxed atmosphere than the regular season and in the winter warmth Florida affords. And it’s all just getting underway with games beginning in the coming week.
Edward de la Fuente, an editorial programmer for Fox Sports, has parlayed his love for traveling to sporting events into an engaging website, Itinerant Fan, with expansive guides to spring training in Arizona (where 15 teams play in the Cactus League) and Florida (15 in the Grapefruit League). As he aptly states , “Spring training is great because unlike the regular season, where you might be getting stressed out over whether your team is winning or losing, it doesn’t really matter. So you can just focus on having a good time.”
Here are three favorite sites for having a good spring training time in the Sunshine State — two on the west coast, one on the east — with recommendations for that other game involving a ball and a stick.
FORT MYERS
It’s a two-for-one deal in Fort Myers, because aside from munching on Fenway Franks in the Red Sox ingratiating JetBlue Park, you get the Minnesota Twins, playing at Hammond Stadium at the Lee Health Sports Complex. There’s no way to see both teams on the same day, though, as they both are scheduled to play all home games at 1:05 p.m. — except at 6:05 p.m. on March 12, when they play each other at JetBlue Park.
On the tee: There’s plenty of fine public golf in the Fort Myers area, but one top pick is Old Corkscrew Golf Club in nearby Estero, which has the lone Jack Nicklaus Signature Course in southwest Florida. Located about 20 minutes from JetBlue Park, it’s a beauty and a beast; from the tips the course is over 7,000 yards and maxes out the slope rating at 155. So don’t do that. The white tees at just over 6,000 yards are a challenge enough at a 141 slope. It’s a thinking player’s course (kind of like baseball is a thinking person’s game), with ample water (and gators) to negotiate.ll great fun as long as you arm yourself with a sense of humor, from a sensible tee.
TAMPA-ST. PETERSBURG
Three teams within 45 minutes or less of each other may make you want to camp out in the Tampa-St. Pete area. The beloved (or acidly hated) New York Yankees train at George M. Steinbrenner Field, their 30th consecutive year in Tampa. But the Philadelphia Phillies have been in Clearwater since the late 1940s. They’re on their third stadium, however, the current BayCare Ballpark coming along in 2004. And in what some have called the best of the spring training arenas, the Toronto Blue Jay have been playing since 1977 in the former Dunedin Stadium, now TD Park.
On the tee: Palm Harbor is just north of Dunedin, and that’s the home of Innisbrook Resort’s four golf courses. All are Larry Packard designs, including what some say is his masterpiece, the Copperhead Course. This is where the PGA Tour tees the Valspar Championship each year.This year’s tournament begins on March 20, just a few days before the last spring training games on March 25. Much is made of the course’s three finishing holes — the Moccasin, the Rattler and the Copperhead — collectively called The Snake Pit, with many a player photo snapped near the 16th tee and its large reptilian statue.
WEST PALM BEACH / PORT ST. LUCIE
On the east coast, three stadiums will get you five teams. In Jupiter, off I-95 (interestingly, off the Donald Ross Road exit), the Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium is shared by the St. Louis Cardinals and the Miami Marlins. Both the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals take their spring swings at the CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach. Less than an hour north in Port St. Lucie, the Mets play at Clover Park.
On the tee: Tiger Woods showed up to hit the opening tee shot when the public Park West Palm opened in 2023, and the reviews have been solid ever since for this Gil Hanse / Jim Wagner design. It’s a new course set on the bones of the old Dick Wilson-designed West Palm Beach Golf Club. Up in Port St. Lucie the clear choice is PGA Village with its 54 holes of golf, two routings by Tom Fazio and the highly regarded (Pete) Dye Course, as well as a six-hole pitch and putt short course.