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This morning started with me wishing death upon Dad’s alarm clock. I woke up exhausted. We showered and headed to Perkins, a regular stop for us when we’re in Clearwater (it’s less than a mile from the Phillies stadium).

We were hanging out on the first base line while watching batting practice. Dad got a ball (that he practically stole from a kid…it’s ok though, because the kid’s grandma was really irritating me and was very close to getting hit in the head). Yes, when provoked, I would totally hit a kid’s grandma.

The Braves took the field for batting practice, and we watched Jeff Francoeur crush pitch after pitch. It was unreal. When he was done, the kid that Dad practically stole that baseball from asked Jeff if he’d sign autographs. Francoeur said that he would sign after he got done doing his workout.

Then it started raining.

They kept BP going for a little bit, but eventually the grounds crew came out and covered the field. I figured we were just out of luck with the Francoeur autograph time. It’s hard enough to get those guys to sign for you when it’s nice and sunny.

Then Francoeur did something none of us expected. He signed. Then he signed some more. He joked with fans. He answered questions. (He told me he’s going to hit 34 home runs this year. Check back at the end of the season to see how he did.) He signed some more. He stayed and signed autographs - in the rain - until every fan that wanted one had their turn. I’ve done a lot of autograph hunting, but I’ve never seen anything like this. When he was finally done, he got a huge ovation from the fans standing around. I switched my camera into video mode and captured about 4 minutes of it.

The game was delayed about 40 minutes. We didn’t get to see Hudson pitch. We did see Escobar hit a grand slam. That was cool. The Phillies staff was in an unusually good mood, as I wasn’t verbally abused by any of their ushers today. (That, unfortunately, isn’t normal.) We’ll be there again Sunday night, so there’s still a chance…

After we left Clearwater, the drive over to Winter Haven was rainy. As we suspected, batting practice at Winter Haven was canceled. We were able to get to see some of the Indians players interviewed on some sports radio show. Bob Feller signed the picture he posed for last year. And Dad got Jim “Mudcat” Grant to sign an old baseball card. Mudcat was a really nice guy.

The game started on time, but it ended after 6 innings because of rain. Indians pitching looked really good against the Expos Nationals. Defense was sloppy (probably partially because of the weather). A Red Sox fan wearing a shirt that said “I hate Yankee fans” tried to pick a fight with us. We ignored him, and he pretty much left us alone. I would have thoroughly enjoyed throwing him down those stairs…

We found our way from Winter Haven back up to Lakeland. The Yankees are in town to play the Tigers tomorrow. It’s a split squad game, so we’re not sure which Yankees we’ll see. If we’ve done our calculations correctly, we should see either Kennedy or Chamberlain pitch. I’m really looking forward to that.

I put some more pictures up in my Spring Training 2008 set on flickr. I’m heading to bed now so that I can be rested up for lots of fun tomorrow.