From the ballpark to the beach: the Minnesota Twins are back for Spring Training

Writer: Sylvie Sparks
Published: Updated:

1700 miles later the Twins truck is here and the team from Minnesota is ready to spend the next six weeks here in Fort Myers for Spring Training.

From the ballpark to the beach, the Minnesota Twins are back in town for Spring Training.

“It’s a symbol that the next season is here, a season that we are hopeful for and a team that we believe in,” said Dustin Morse, Minnesota Twins Senior Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs. “It just means baseball is really close and if you like baseball this is the place to be.”

There’s still a lot of work to be done before the first pitch.

“We kind of set up shop over the next couple of days, unpack,” said Morse. “There’s a lot of personal luggage. Pitching machines, bats and balls and some sunflower seeds are on there. The new gear will be on display with our players, so there’s a lot of that, but a lot of the personal stuff. There are over 100 staff members that come down here so it’s it’s luggage, it’s bikes, trikes, scooters, strollers, a lot of that too. This is our second home so it feels right. We just got a lot of work to do today and tomorrow to get ready for players showing up on Monday and Tuesday next week.”

All stuff, no players just yet.

Still, weeks away from game time, fans came out to see their team move back in.

“It’s exciting because you see all the stuff coming in,” said Roger Pearson, a Spring Training season ticket holder.

Fans like Pearson, who relocated from Minnesota to Fort Myers nine years ago, don’t plan on missing a beat.

“I’m a Twins fan because my first job was at Metropolitan Stadium in 1965,” said Pearson. “The greatest year at the old Met, it’s now the Mall of America. 1965 was great because we had the All-Star game, the Beatles showed up and the Twins were in the World Series and lost to the Dodgers in seven games.”

Lucky for Pearson, he’s seen the Twins win two World Series since ’65 and he and the team are optimistic for this season.

There’s a long season ahead and it all starts on truck day.

“0-0, the first game starts out and we’re all the same standings,” said Pearson. “We’ll see what happens.”

Now that everything is off the truck, pitchers and catchers will be ready to go when they report to Spring Training on the 13th.

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