9/19/2011 7:37:05 AM
FORT MYERS, Fla. - As I stare out the pressbox window down onto the immaculate playing field at Hammond Stadium, I am reminded once again how blessed this city is in terms of the baseball facilities it can boast.
And that boast is about to get much louder.
I am at Hammond Stadium this morning for the semifinal round and championship games at the Perfect Game WWBA Florida Qualifier. It's an absolutely beautiful morning, and the semifinal game between No. 12 seed SWFL 18u and top-seed FTB Pride is just under way at the main stadium while Bucky Dent Academy and FTB Mizuno 17u play at an adjacent field.
Hammond Stadium, built in 1991, is the spring training home of the Minnesota Twins and the summertime home of the Fort Myers Miracle of the Class A Florida State League. Its outer facade was designed to resemble Churchill Downs and the stadium has seating for about 7,500 fans. There are five more regulation-size baseball practice fields - and four softball fields - at the Lee County Sports Complex in south Fort Myers where Hammond Stadium sits.
The Lee County Sports Compex is one of four venues in town that Perfect Game utilizes for tournaments and showcase events (PG also uses local high school fields). The others are City of Palms Park, the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox; the Boston Red Sox Player Development 5-plex, where the Red Sox have five practice fields; and venerable old Terry Park, which features four regulation fields and spouts a history the other venues can only dream about.
Terry Park, located just a long fly ball from this city's Historical Downtown District, has been around since early last century. Hall of Fame manager Connie Mack brought his Philadelphia Athletics to Terry Park for spring training in 1925, and the Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals all called the quaint facility with its steel and wood grandstand their spring training home in years past. Three of its fields are named after Mack, Roberto Clemente and George Brett.
City of Palms Park sits just down the road from Terry Park in another residential area near downtown. The city planted 250 palm trees around the stadium, which opened in 1993, two years after Hammond Stadium. City of Palms, while still fairly new, won't be the Red Sox spring training home much longer, however.
The Red Sox are building a new training complex just across Daniels Parkway from Hammond Stadium. The state-of-the-art complex will feature a main stadium that seats 11,0000 and is essentially a mini-Fenway Park. It will feature the same playing field dimensions as Fenway and will have its own Green Monster in left field. Five practice fields will also sit on the site, which will eliminate the Red Sox's need for the 5-Plex. The new complex will likely open in 2013.
Lee County and the city are hoping to attract another major league club to City of Palms, and it will be interesting to see what transpires. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy all of the outstanding baseball facilities in town, ball parks and playing fields that Perfect Game has used to showcase the talents of thousands of top prospects for well more than a decade.