No we did not park in (Cleveland Indians Media Director) Bart Swain’s space. And rather than Bart being Bart, the Indians media office was actually very nice to us, welcoming us to Winter Haven and writing us media passes on the spot even though Geoff Kelly’s fax from the Artvoice office was nowhere to be found.

Today we headed to Winter Haven, home of the Cleveland Indians, to have one more look at a ballpark and training complex thatwill soon be no more. The Indians are moving to Arizona after this season, and looks now that this facility will be razed and condos and shopping will take its place. In a way that’s too bad, because this is one of the last throwback ballparks down here in Florida, but one by one places like this are giving way to glitzy and glamorous new ballparks with all the bells and whistles.

We ran into Jim Rosenhaus, former Bisons play by play guy who now is part of the Indians broadcast crew. Rosie was his usual nice self and hung out with us for a while to talk about the final days here in Winter Haven, and asked about a lot of people back in Buffalo. Man we miss this guy! But we are happy he is doing so well in his job here in Cleveland.

On to the game we saw… Jake Westbrook was on the mound for the Tribe, and was absolutely filthy, throwing six perfect innings on only 65 pitches. The perfect game was finally broken up in the 7th when reliever Jorge Julio gave up a rope double to Atlanta’s Chipper Jones with two outs. By then it was 7-0 Cleveland and they would go on to win 8-0.

So a question… had the Indians gone on to record a combined no-hitter or perfect game, would this have counted towards Peter’s quest to see a no-hitter in person, a yet unfulfilled dream? We text messaged the Buffalo News’ Mike Harrington, who is the ultimate authority on these things, and Mike quickly responded with an emphatic “NO!”. At the end of the day, practice baseball is still practice baseball.

We booked out of Winter Haven after the 7th inning stretch (thankfully just Take Me Out To The Ballgame and none of that Dead Fat Woman’s Song,) and made the 15 mile drive west to Lakeland. Why, you wonder? The Bisons were there to play the Toledo Mud Hens, and we arrived just in time to see the Herd record their final two outs in a 6-2 win. So we chatted a bit with Manager Torey Lovullo (interesting how the team takes the bus back to camp but Torey drives in his own car), got a few comments which will be part of a special “Play Ball” column in this week’s Artvoice, and headed back to Orlando.

Tomorrow it’s Brighthouse Networks Field in Clearwater, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, as the USRT Florida adventure continues.

The main walkway outside Chain of Lakes Park

A full house on hand… just two more games to go for this ballpark after this one

The Bisons, meanwhile, play their games on a practice field, with just a handful of die hards looking on… this pic taken at the Tigers facility in Lakeland

Talking baseball with Bisons skipper Torey Lovullo down in Lakeland

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