Maybe you’re a regular at Detroit Tigers spring training camp. Maybe you’ve made the pilgrimage once, like myself. And maybe your best spring training memory came from a story or from watching Grapefruit League action on television.
I went down once, long before the whole Lakeland complex was completely renovated, before I even started writing about baseball. One of these years, I’ll get back to check it all out, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen this year.
Still, there are a lot of fun memories even just from the last 5-10 years. I look back fondly but also with sorrow at a certain Matt Manning appearance in 2020 spring camp before COVID sent everyone home. For a brief moment, there was the Tigers pitching prospect looking more built than ever before, firing 97-99 mph fastballs past Yankees hitters. Sadly, that was kind of a high point in his development, and we rarely saw that velocity ever again. My dreams of a second Noah Snydergaard lie in ruin.
My favorite recent memory though, was from that same 2020 camp, and also against the Yankees, when Miguel Cabrera took Gerrit Cole deep twice for two monstrous home runs in a Grapefruit League matchup. That felt like the last time we saw the real Miguel Cabrera before age finally took their toll. Sorry I’m in a bittersweet mood this weekend apparently.
Check these bombs out. The first one looked like it carried 470 feet downwind out to left center field. The second was off the batter’s eye in straightaway center.
So how about you? What memories come to mind when you think spring training and Lakeland?