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| - Loving baseball like I do, I just had to come down for a Spring Training experience and boy am I glad I did. Frankly, I spent less time watching games than I did driving around Phoenix and the surounding area because after a few innings of watching players you have never heard of do their thing, you get a little bored and your butt gets itchy for more action. Plus, I was born in Phoenix, and hadn't been down here since I was a wee little lad and wanted to relive my youth.
It is very cool however to go from park to park just to see how different they all are and with so many teams moving from Florida to Arizona, the place is now very crowded. I saw the A's at Phoenix Muni, the Giants at Scottsdale Muni, Seattle at their new complex, Milwaukee at Marysvale and the Angels at Tempe Diablo. Of all the parks, Tempe Diablo was pretty cool, not because you have an incredibly busy freeway right off of the right field line but because of the awesome mountain right behind the left field fence. It makes the park desert-like.
The food is also very good as long as you like hot dogs and cokes. The parking really convenient as long as you get there early before the lot fills up because the park is way off by itself in an industral area and there is NO PARKING on the side streets allowed.
Finally, if you get there early and love getting player pictures and autographs, this is the place for you cause they can't escape walking from the practice fields, through the lot into the main park. No other park does this and generally the players are pretty good about stopping if you are nice to them. Personally, I have never been an autograph kind of guy. What does having someone sign their name to something do anyway? Never understood the mind-set of that. They don't care about you and frankly, do you really care about them?
All in all, if you are making the Spring Training trip, this is one of the better parks to visit. It is never that crowded so you can get a good seat and you can get yourself in and out with ease. And remember, the Angels are one of the hot teams now to so see them while they are one of the best teams.
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