MollyG went to Spring Training!

I've uploaded Molly's pictures into this album. Here's her account of the weekend -- thanks for sharing all this with us!

The first set of pictures (up until 100-4598) are from Friday March 12 vs. the Pirates. We already had our tickets for that day but almost didn’t even drive to the park because of the rain. When we woke up 5 inches of rain had already fallen in Orlando! Even the weather man was impressed. We decided to drive over to see if we could swap our tickets for another day, but when we got there the game was still on. Luckily our seats were on the very last row covered by the upper deck. Eventually the rain stopped and the guys started stretching and warming up in the outfield. I loved how close you could get to the guys because of the stadium size. I was literally a few feet from Jason Heyward and Martin Prado. Luckily I was able to contain myself :)

In pic 100_4544 Clint Sammons came over to sign autographs for the fans. There’s no zoom in that picture, he was that close! He was smiling I just didn’t get it on film apparently. He was the only one I saw signing anything that day, but again we got there late thinking the game would get cancelled.

I snapped a lot of pictures of Jason Heyward. He was adorable, smiled the entire time. He and Freeman stayed close to each other and seemed to be having fun. Jason didn’t sign any autographs but would turn and smile at the fans for pictures.

Picture 100_4598 is of the only fans who tried to brave the outfield seats during the rain. Jair came out and pitched the first 2 innings I believe but then we had the first rain delay. After that Reyes came out. JoJo is such a letdown compared to Jair in more ways than one lol. The rain picked up again, the umps called for another delay and everyone ran to the dugout to take shelter under Snitker’s stache ;) After what seemed like forever they went ahead and cancelled the game. They didn’t make it to a full game so I got to see Jair for a little bit and we got our money back! Haha

Picture 100_4606 starts day 2, Saturday March 13 vs. the Blue Jays. As you can see the weather was beautiful that day! I was disappointed that Heyward wasn’t playing but we did get to see Huddy pitch.

Chipper is doing some…interesting stretching in 100_4629.

We didn’t play too well but we had a great time laying in the outfield in the gorgeous sunshine! I don’t understand everything about baseball and I thought we lost that game but someone told me it was a split squad game or something like that and we actually were credited with a win? Ha, I have no clue. All I know is we got less runs than Toronto.

Anyway, we had a great time at spring training! It was my first time to go and it was a blast. Orlando is a great place. We also went to a Magic game (which I recommend even if you aren’t a bball fan) and got a free day at Disney World through the “Give a Day, Get a Day” program (that’s a great deal too!)

I don’t know if I told you or not but the person I went with is my friend Cori, I believe she comments on your blog as Cori Jo. Hope you enjoyed the pics!

Loved the pics, and loved the stories too! I've asked some internet friends to explain split-squad scoring because I don't understand it either (do you add it all up? average the squads?) so as soon as I hear something, I'll add it to the post here.

Thanks so much, Molly! :)

ETA: Received this response from Dr. Brave at Chop Nation...

The games count as normal, without any regard to whether either squad is split... so one win and one loss added to the record. Player stats (and the resulting team stats) are summed as if the games had occurred on separate days.

(Sometimes one split squad plays another split squad, and sometimes a split squad will play a full squad.)

Makes sense to me! Thanks!