Players-Sb

The Dodgers broke the Black Maria of
followers when they left Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1958. Now
the Major League Baseball squad is upsetting fans again, this
time in Florida.

The Dodgers this hebdomad played their last game in Dodgertown,
their Vero Beach springtime preparation place for 60 years.

''Their departure is a shame, but it was inevitable,'' said
retiree Don Moyer, who watched the March 17 game along the
third-base line, in seating once colored Dodger bluish and now
bleached by the Sunshine State sun.

The desertion is scheduled to be
followed by the adjacent year, continuing an
exodus that volition set 14 of Major League Baseball's 30 squads in
Arizona. As recently as 1997, eight squads trained in Grand Canyon State and
20 in Florida, said Dent Gandy, a spokesman for Florida's
Grapefruit League.

The Dodgers will travel to a new $80 million bowl in the
Phoenix suburbia of Glendale, 2,200 statute miles (3,500 kilometers)
closer to home. The new composite will have got more than than 1 million
square feet (93,000 foursquare meters) of commercial, office, retail
and eating house space and a four-star hotel, according to a news
release from the Glendale government.

The Indians will go forth Winter Haven, Florida, for a $75
million installation in another Capital Of Arizona suburb, Goodyear. The
are considering joining them, Toilet Allen, a team
adviser, have told Goodyear's metropolis council, according to meeting
minutes.

Drawn by the bright climate, baseball game began playing spring
practice games in Sunshine State as early as 1888, according to the
. The state held on to them through such as things
as a late 1980s law that allowed local authorities to keep
tourist-tax revenue to construct athletics facilities.

Poaching From Sunshine State

Arizona copied the law and its towns began luring more
teams to its . Most of the Cactus squads railroad train near
Phoenix, making it easy to go by autobus to play each other and
for visiting fans to see respective squads in action. Florida's
spring preparation land sites are distribute from Dunedin, north of Tampa,
to Garrison Lauderdale, 270 statute miles away.

''It sets them closer to place and closer to their fan
base,'' Jack Davis, a history professor at the University of
Florida, said of the Dodgers' move.

''I'm leaving something very, very particular here,'' Dodger
Hall-of-Famer told fans from place plate as the
team played the Houston Astros on March 17. ''There isn't
another, better complex in all of baseball game than Vero Beach. Don't forget, if you don't play for the Dodgers you may not get
into heaven.''

Robinson, Koufax Memories

While it won't have got got the memories of Jackie Robert Robert Robinson and
, who both adept at Dodgertown, the new stadium
will have about 3,500 more than than than seats, more lawn space and more
modern installations than Holman Stadium in Vero Beach. Holman's
bullpen is four greenness wood benches on a hill in the right field
corner. The dugouts are uncovered metallic element benches where some
players curtain White towels over their caputs to screen from the
sun.

''It's similar pickings a piece of me away from me,'' said
former Dodger, who said he have slept in the same
room in Vero Beach since he first came in 1951.

'''That's life and that's the nature of the concern we're
in,'' said Wills, 75, who was the National League's Most
Valuable Player in 1962, and now managers base-stealing and
bunting for the Dodgers. ''You do friends and you travel on and
you go forth them behind.''

Lasorda, 80, joined the Dodgers when they were still in
Brooklyn. He managed the squad for 20 old age until 1996, leading
it to three World Series titles. He's now particular advisor to the
team's chairman, and coached at the last Dodgertown game. He and
Wills received standing standing ovations from the crowd of 7,327 as they
made their manner onto the field.

Erskine's Harmonica

So did former hurler who, dressed in a
Dodgers uniform, played the National Anthem on his harmonica. Erskine, 81, threw the first pitch in Holman Stadium in 1953.

The Dodgers played the Sunshine State Marlins in Jupiter, Florida,
on March 18 before heading to Grand Canyon State to wrap up up this year's
spring training. Holman is the Dodgers' exigency back-up site
if the Glendale bowl isn't ready for springtime preparation next
February, said Joe Baird, decision maker for North American Indian River County.

Another squad is negotiating with the county to
take over Holman, Baird said. He declined to call the team. The
Dodgertown name on the 64-acre chemical compound probably will be
changed, he said.

''If there was any manner we could have got got kept the Dodgers, we
would have,'' Baird said. ''They said it was purely a business
decision. They offered more than than we could offer and it acquires them
closer to the Occident Coast.

''It do sense on paper,'' he said.

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