Major League Baseball spring training games should have started this weekend, with the World Champion Atlanta Braves hosting the Boston Red Sox Saturday at CoolToday Park, the Pittsburgh Pirates hosting the Tampa Bay Rays at LECOM Park and the Baltimore Orioles hosting the New York Yankees at Ed Smith Stadium.
Instead the day is clouded by the ongoing lockout and the shadow of a threat by Major League Baseball owners that regular season games would be canceled, if the dispute isn’t settled by Monday.
Longtime fans Jack Zimmerman and Don O’Leary – both of whom participated in Wednesday’s softball tournament that featured teams of Amish snowbirds from Pennsylvania playing Sarasota seniors – have enjoyed spring training in years past.