Funny what you run into when driving in the Sonoran desert.
Goodyear, Arizona, is not a town I’d heard of prior to rolling through it on a spring day. Despite being in the middle of the hottest desert in the States, billboards were advertising the Cleveland Guardians (the Major League Baseball Team)– an anachronism I couldn’t quite get my head around at first.
I did eventually put two and two together, that Goodyear was the spring training home for the Guardians. Being from Cleveland originally, I thought that was a good enough reason to pull over.
I was easily able to grab a same-day ticket… AND I MET THE BUDWEISER CLYDESDALES. By accident. They were just on the grounds, looking majestic as hell. Now, I have seen some beautiful horses in my life– the farm I used to own was directly across from a show horse pasture– but WOW, these horses.
The Clydesdales were some of the healthiest horses I’d seen, no-doubt living their best lives despite the plethora of tourist photo ops. I could only imagine the way they must be pampered.
The game was a strange one to see, as the players were clearly still getting used to the new pitch clock and other rule changes. I wasn’t sure if I would like the speedier pace, but sure enough– I did. If anything, I felt the new pace could put more pressure on food and beer vendors– the amount of time a person could spend in line (without missing anything) decreased significantly!
(Maybe concession stands will get their act together as a result).
The Guardians didn’t win, but that tracks– I am from Cleveland, after all, and we are incredibly used to losing sports games. So, par for the course.
Spring Training wasn’t on my bucket list per se, but one of the best things about being in the van is getting to jerk the wheel when something random interests you. And Goodyear, Arizona in late March was one of those ‘right place at the right time’ kind of finds.
Posted by Sun
