Maybe you\u2019re a regular at Detroit Tigers spring training camp. Maybe you\u2019ve made the pilgrimage once, like myself. And maybe your best spring training memory came from a story or from watching Grapefruit League action on television.<\/p>\n
I went down once, long before the whole Lakeland complex was completely renovated, before I even started writing about baseball. One of these years, I\u2019ll get back to check it all out, but it doesn\u2019t look like it\u2019s going to happen this year.<\/p>\n
Still, there are a lot of fun memories even just from the last 5-10 years. I look back fondly but also with sorrow at a certain Matt Manning appearance in 2020 spring camp before COVID sent everyone home. For a brief moment, there was the Tigers pitching prospect looking more built than ever before, firing 97-99 mph fastballs past Yankees hitters. Sadly, that was kind of a high point in his development, and we rarely saw that velocity ever again. My dreams of a second Noah Snydergaard lie in ruin.<\/p>\n
My favorite recent memory though, was from that same 2020 camp, and also against the Yankees, when Miguel Cabrera took Gerrit Cole deep twice for two monstrous home runs in a Grapefruit League matchup. That felt like the last time we saw the real Miguel Cabrera before age finally took their toll. Sorry I\u2019m in a bittersweet mood this weekend apparently.<\/p>\n
Check these bombs out. The first one looked like it carried 470 feet downwind out to left center field. The second was off the batter\u2019s eye in straightaway center.<\/p>\n
So how about you? What memories come to mind when you think spring training and Lakeland?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe you\u2019re a regular at Detroit Tigers spring training camp. Maybe you\u2019ve made the pilgrimage once, like myself.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,72746,2583,4,594],"class_list":{"0":"post-574600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-detroit-tigers-discussion","12":"tag-detroittigers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116076985955094449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}