My boyfriend and I went to a party last night here in the Boston area. A light mist was falling and the breezy felt wet rather than bone-chilling. "Smells like spring," he remarked.

"That's because it is," I answered.

"No it isn't. It's only February."

"Pitchers and catchers reported. It's spring."

I've just returned from two weeks in Florida, where I went to interview as many former Yankees as I could find for inclusion in my upcoming book on the FIFTY GREATEST YANKEES GAMES. My trip took me from Tampa to Orlando to Fort Lauderdale and back to Tampa, with side trips to Venice, Hernando, and Land O' Lakes. The tail end of my trip included a few days at Legends Field with the press corps, for the start of pitchers and catchers.

But even with all these adventures, I find myself still looking forward to the first hot dog of the spring, eaten in the sun, while cheering for my team. Being a professional is wonderful--an experience I wouldn't trade for anything--but part of the beauty of baseball is what a simple pleasure it is. The old saying is true, there is "no cheering in the press box." For that you have to sit in the stands.

The first day I can be a fan will be next month, well into March, when my interviews are done and the manuscript will be in the final draft stage. I have the day marked on the calendar. It seems appropriate somehow that the opportunity will come in Disney World, for a spring training game at Disney's Wide World of Sports complex. After all, Disney is the land where the delights of childhood are given paramount importance.

I have a history with Disney and baseball now. In 1999, when I came back to the sport and rediscovered the Yankees after more than fifteen years away, we were at Walt Disney World with a large group of friends during the World Series. (Now I know not to schedule any vacations in October.) corwin and I went to the All Star Sports Cafe to watch Game Three. This was the game where Pettitte got into trouble early, Jason Grimsley came in to shut down the Braves, and Chad Curtis hit two home runs. I had lost my Yankees cap on the trip and had been unable to find one in any of the sporting goods stores in Kissimmee, but I was able to buy one in the gift shop at Wide World of Sports. My first fitted wool cap. I still have the scorecard from that game, written out on the back of a paper placemat. (Now I know not to travel without my pre-printed scorecards.)

This year's journeys in Florida began with a trip to WDW-WWOS as well, but this time I flew down to be an instructor at the Amateur Athletic Union's annual "Girls-n-Sports Day," for Girl Scouts from all over the country. A baseball instructor, I should add. The AAU is very supportive of baseball as a valid choice of sport for female athletes, a position I heartily agree with. Why should girls be forced into softball and steered away from baseball, when baseball players are their heroes?

My trip began with a plane flight from Boston to Tampa. Heavy snow was falling, mixed with ice, when I arrived at Logan Airport and the plane had to be de-iced before we could take off. Then we had to sit on the runway waiting for incoming flights to clear in the low visibility. But the flight was uneventful and I stepped off the plane in Tampa to hot, humid 79 degrees.

As I walked through the airport, my senses were startled by a familiar smell. What is that? I thought. You know how it is, smells can trigger emotions... my heart began to beat a little faster. What is that smell? I suddenly realized what it was: institutional air conditioning, which I last smelled in Arizona when I was there in October for the Women's Baseball Marathon. The Diamondbacks clubhouse, where we slept, the hotel, the airport--all the indoor spaces in Arizona were heavily airconditioned, what with it being 100 degrees every day we were there. For a few moments, I almost felt like the winter had never happened. In Arizona, the players in the 24-hour-game enjoyed two days of instructional camp and I was in the best baseball shape of my life. My arm didn't hurt, my batting stroke was good...

Since then, it had been cold in Boston. And since Christmas or so, bitterly cold. Many days of single-digit highs. Ridiculous. Too cold too even think about going outside and throwing a ball against a wall.

So I hadn't thrown since October, nor had I swung a bat. John, a knuckleballer from Indiana who was the organizer of the baseball folks at the AAU event, slated me to coach hitting, since I told him I'm a not as good a fielder. This worked out well since a few days before I left, I had the worst flare up of my elbow/wrist tendon problem in months. I did a lot of typing and mousing trying to catch up so I could go away, and blam, it was so sore and painful on Tuesday night that I could hardly sleep. Even worse, doing my usual rehab stretches and exercises was excruciating. Thursday I went to see my doctor to get a referral to physical therapy again, and he was sick. But the nice woman who filled in for him wrote me the referral and also gave me a wrist brace. I've been wearing it and it seems to help--not flexing my wrist constantly seems to let the tendon rest. Throwing a little is probably fine, but not too much.

I'm sorry that two of the women who were going to try to come to coach didn't make it. One, Robin Wallace, better known as "Bama" (she's from Alabama), was the woman who originally showed me how to hold a ball and throw those years ago when I first tried out for NEWBL. The other, Theresa MacGregor, was my roomie in Arizona and it would have been so cool to see her again. But it was not to be. I did meet up with two pals I know through the Pawtucket Slaterettes, though, Deb Bettencourt and Sarah Feeley.

So it was that me, Deb, Sarah, and some other assorted players from women's leagues around the country assembled on Friday night for dinner at the All Star Sports Cafe. The next morning at 8am we were out on the practice fields behind "Cracker Jack Stadium," where the Braves play their spring training exhibition games, setting up batting tees and areas for fielding drills. Although we'd gone to bed early, I didn't sleep well, and woke up with my eyes bloodshot and itchy from allergies. I decided not to wear my contact lenses and opted for my glasses instead. After all, if I wasn't going to be facing live pitching, the glasses wouldn't be a safety hazard. I had forgotten, though, that my depth perception is markedly different with my glasses, and Sarah and I struggled through a warm-up game of catch with me stabbing at the ball and her trying to get her arm going after missing all last season with her pregnancy. Hey, it could have been a lot worse. We didn't overdo it, and after a long winter, it felt good to be standing on green grass.

The day was a little bit nippy, in the mid-sixties, overcast with some slight drizzle in the morning, but compared to what we were used to, it seemed balmy. The schedule for the day would run five one-hour sessions, where each hour a new group of fifty to a hundred Girl Scouts would rotate from one sport to the next. Basketball, gymnastics... I never saw all the other sports since I never left our field, but there were a bunch of them. Within each session, we would have the girls do fifteen minutes at each of three stations, hitting, pitching, and fielding. I would line up my group, show them the basics of how to position themselves to the tee, how to grip the bat and take a stance, and how to swing. Each girl would get three good swings in, and then rotate. If there was time, I'd let them each take two more good ones, and one group, which was a little smaller, got to each take on last one before they moved on.

Then it was time for me to move on. I actually had to skip out of the final session to get on the road to Fort Lauderdale, to try to arrive there by 7pm for the Joe DiMaggio Legends Game.

The Legends Game is a cross between an Old Timer's Day game and an all-star game. This particular one was started years ago as a benefit to the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Hollywood, FL (where Joe lived at the end of his life). A team of former American League players, which included over a dozen former Yankees, faced a group of National Leaguers, with some celebrities and non-baseball athletes mixed in on both sides as well. They play it at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, which is the Orioles' spring training home right now. I arrived to find the weather turned blustery, with a whipping wind. I put on my layers and found it comfortable to sit in the stands down by the dugout.

I was supposed to try to meet up with Tom Tresh before the game, if possible, but with a four hour drive from Orlando, I arrived just in time to see the groundskeepers priddying up the field before the game was due to start.

Shall I try to describe the game to you? There was no scorecard on sale, and I didn't even try to write down all the players--I mostly just jotted down the ex-Yankees so I could try to catch them later for interviews. Here's what I sent to the Yankees player alumni newsletter about it:

"The game featured Yankees from four decades. Stan Bahnsen, Paul Blair, Johnny Blanchard, Bert Campaneris, Al Downing, Oscar Gamble, Jay Johnstone, Clive King, Phil Linz, Elliott Maddox, Rudy May, Mickey Rivers, Tom Tresh, Steve Whitaker, and Roy White all suited up for the American League team, joined by Blue Moon Odom, Minnie Minoso, Willie Horton, and some non-baseball celebrities and athletes, facing a National League squad led by Ron Swoboda, Andre Dawson, and Cookie Rojas. Campy wore an Oakland A's uniform, but looked back fondly on his one season with the Yankees. "I loved the opportunity to play for the Yankees in Yankee Stadium," he said. "The Yankees are so famous for Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, all of those guys. So to get to play for the Yankees was exciting. Really exciting."

"In recent years the AL has dominated the contest, winning the past four years in a row. But although Stan Bahnsen pitched two scoreless innings, the NL took an early 3-0 lead. The AL tied the score in the fifth when Campaneris, Rivers, Gamble and Whitaker put their hits together for a game-tying three-run rally. Mickey Rivers can still fly around the bases, and Roy White can still put on the afterburners in the outfield. "These games are fun. It's great to see the guys and enjoy the camaraderie," said Al Downing, who suited up but did not pitch. "But the outcome of the game is always controlled by the young hitters." Ultimately the outcome of this game was controlled by the Florida Marlins' Orestes Destrade, who hit a three run home run to sink the AL."

There you go--the Marlins beat the Yankees again. Probably one of the funniest moments in the game was when a guy named Steve Shields, apparently a hockey player with one of the Florida teams, was in the game. He stepped to the plate, and the catcher behind him was another NHL star, Chris Chelios! Chelios seemed like a decent catcher, too. Who knew?

After the game ended, I met up with Phil Linz in the catering tent for the post-game party. Phil, for those of you who are wracking your brains trying to remember who he was, is best known for being the guy who played the harmonica in the "harmonica incident." (Read a detailed account by Harvey Frommer at Baseball Library) Linz was the leading shortstop in the Yankees system at the Double A level, and Tom Tresh was at Triple A. In 1962, Tony Kubek had to serve in the military, so Linz and Tresh fought it out for the shortstop job in spring training. Tresh edged him out, but Linz became a utility man and stayed with the big club. At the end of that rookie year, Tresh ended up moved to left field (he was leading the team in hitting) when Kubek returned. Tresh played every game in the World Series in left, but Linz would later have his October glory, too, starting every game in the 1964 series at shortstop because Kubek had gotten hurt.

He's also an incredibly nice guy. (Read portions of my interview with Phil Linz in the News and Announcements section of the Fifty Greatest Discussion Board.) Phil not only sat with me for a forty-five minute interview in the middle of the party, he introduced me to several other players, including Mickey Rivers, Elliott Maddox, and Steve Whitaker.

Whitaker is one who played for the Yankees in a relatively dull era, 1966-1970, so I didn't actually interview him as he wasn't involved in any of the FIFTY GREATEST GAMES. Instead we sat drinking red wine and shooting the breeze. Don't ask me why I remembered this, but Whitaker was traded to the Seattle Pilots for Lou Piniella, who went on to become Rookie of the Year. "Lou, now there's a guy who was just crazy in the minor leagues," Whitaker told me. "You know, he'd strike out to end an inning, and be so mad at himself that he'd crawl to his position. By the time he made the majors, he was almost normal, in comparison." We talked about the current Yankees, and whether we think Tino will do better back in the AL (we do), and other baseball-related topics.

Many former players say they don't follow the current game at all. And I am sure that many of them don't. But of the former Yankees I interviewed on this trip, pretty much all of them do. They were all well-versed in what happened in last year's postseason, the current state of the Yankees' rotation, and so on. Some, like Jim Kaat, obviously maintain a professional relationship with the team, and as a broadcaster for YES, Kaat's job includes keeping up with what goes on, and with watching the games. But many of the former Yankees keep up with the team because they feel they are a part of the Yankees still, even if their involvement is now limited to watching them on TV and perhaps appearing at the occasional Old Timer's Game.

Elliott Maddox later told me "To this day, I don't know what its like with the other positions players, but I can tell you with center fielders, we stay close, we talk to each other, we support each other. Myself, Mickey Rivers, Jerry Mumphrey... on up to Bernie, we're always there for the other person. When we see Bernie, we'll talk to him like he's our younger brother, 'okay, you gotta bear down, don't become complacent, you got to carry it on.'"

This is one of the reasons why researching the history of the Yankees is so satisfying and interesting. The institution that is the "New York Yankees" engenders this kind of thinking and this kind of emotion. It's not just generations of fans, but generations of ballplayers, who have worshipped in the cathedral that is Yankee Stadium. Not many other teams can claim that depth of tradition. You can't force it to happen. You have the Red Sox, of course, in Fenway Park, playing in uniforms without names. And who else? The Cubs, of course, the Cubs. But the Giants, the Dodgers, there is that dislocation of the move westward. I do not know if Bobby Thompson feels any kinship with Barry Bonds. Willie Mays is still around, but somehow naming a concession stand after him in the new Pac Bell Park doesn't strike me as awe inspiring. Is there any thread linking Connie Mack's old Philadelphia A's with the modern frat boys of the Oakland Athletics? Perhaps there is, and I just have yet to discover it. But with the Yankees, the pride and the sense of belonging is there in every player I talked to.

Coming up next: Jim Kaat at the Conine Golf Classic, interviews with Elliott Maddox, Al Downing, Tom Tresh, Ryne Duren and Joe Girardi, the Ted Williams Museum induction ceremony, a visit to "Baseball as America" in St. Petersburg, pitcher and catchers reporting to Legends Field, and more.