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Get ready for baseball!

If you go back just a half-dozen or so blog entries, you’ll see a picture of me at a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. If you live in Tampa Bay, you’ve got to love football and the Bucs — there’s just no getting around it. This is definitely a football town, and Florida is a football state, for that matter.

But the truth is, I’m more of a baseball person. If you grow up in New England as I did, the Red Sox are almost a religion. If it’s summer, you’re following the Red Sox; if it’s winter, you’re talking about them.

But since we’ve been in Florida, we’ve done something of a baseball about-face, and now we follow the Devil Rays. And in just a couple of days (Friday to be exact), the season kicks off with picthers and catchers reporting for the beginning of Spring Training.

We’re excited. Not because the Devil Rays are likely to turn into winners (they have finished last in their division in every one of their nine years of existence), but because they are an exciting young team that is fun to watch.

The Rays are really just a bunch of kids — very few veterans and a whole bunch of young rookies. But they are loads of fun to watch and root for, and Tropicana Field is a comfortable and easy-to-get-to place to watch a baseball game. No, it isn’t Fenway Park — it’s sort of an ugly domed stadium with artificial grass. But the parking is pretty easy and the park is always 70 degrees, no matter what the weather is outside. And it never, ever rains.

(A few years ago I sold a condo to one of the young Rays minor leaguers. That was a real thrill!)

The Rays’ first workout is this Saturday at the Raymond A. Namoli Baseball Complex in St. Pete, starting at 9:30 a.m. The entire team is supposed to be on hand by Feb. 21.

This workout period is a good deal if you love baseball. Admission and parking are both free, and refreshments and souvenirs are available. The actual exhibition season starts March 2 with a game against the Yankees in Tampa, but you have to pay to attend those games.

Amyway, maybe we’ll see you at Tropicana Field this summer. It’s another great benefit to living here in Tampa Bay.

Tags: baseball, pinellas county, rays