Very Interesting How Certain Stars are valued

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by Vegas Cards

I can tell you living in Los Angeles as a Dodgers fan, that's absolutely how he's treated here.

My dad grew up a Brooklyn Dodger fan and always read spring training stories about Vero Beach in the Daily News as a kid. He said as a kid he always wanted to get to this place, which to a kid in Brooklyn growing up in a small apartment seemed like some mythical fantasy land. Decades later he and my mom bought a condo in Vero and occasionally would go to the Dodgertown area and walk around. The very first time I ever went down to see their place was early February and got my dad to drive my over to see what it looked like. As it was early February and spring training had not officially opened, there was almost nothing going on. Stars hadn't even reported yet. We walked around and spotted a few guys on a practice field in uniform and walked over. Amazingly, we just walked out onto the field and up to the pitchers mound where some kind of meeting was taking place. When we got close enough to stand directly behind a player (zero security!) it took me 5 seconds to figure out it was Sandy Koufax holding a baseball showing different pitch grips to a bunch of spellbound greenhorn players. He was wearing the typical Florida retiree tan slacks and polo shirt. Slim and sharp looking as he always is. I looked at my father who hadn't made the connection and said to him "yeah, that's Sandy Koufax." Pretty cool little moment.

[packs]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

My dad grew up a Brooklyn Dodger fan and always read spring training stories about Vero Beach in the Daily News as a kid. He said as a kid he always wanted to get to this place, which to a kid in Brooklyn growing up in a small apartment seemed like some mythical fantasy land. Decades later he and my mom bought a condo in Vero and occasionally would go to the Dodgertown area and walk around. The very first time I ever went down to see their place was early February and got my dad to drive my over to see what it looked like. As it was early February and spring training had not officially opened, there was almost nothing going on. Stars hadn't even reported yet. We walked around and spotted a few guys on a practice field in uniform and walked over. Amazingly, we just walked out onto the field and up to the pitchers mound where some kind of meeting was taking place. When we got close enough to stand directly behind a player (zero security!) it took me 5 seconds to figure out it was Sandy Koufax holding a baseball showing different pitch grips to a bunch of spellbound greenhorn players. He was wearing the typical Florida retiree tan slacks and polo shirt. Slim and sharp looking as he always is. I looked at my father who hadn't made the connection and said to him "yeah, that's Sandy Koufax." Pretty cool little moment.

I absolutely loved Dodgertown in Vero. My grandmother lives there and we'd go down every year to visit and check out spring training. Dodgertown was hands down the best facility I ever went to. All that separated you from the players there was a yellow rope. It seemed like everyone on the team would stop to sign too. Sad to see it go.