SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – One week after the \u2018big game,\u2019 football was far from the minds of folks at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota on Sunday. \u2018Birds\u2019 fans from near and far flocked to the stadium to see their beloved O\u2019s take flight in an open workout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait for baseball season,\u201d Lee Bishoff said. She relocated to the area at least in part because of her beloved team, and grew up going to games in Baltimore with her father. <\/p>\n
Baltimore is bringing some of its finest athletes down south, and these birds are making snowbirds and new Suncoasters out of fans from the D-M-V (DC, Maryland and Virginia).<\/p>\n
Some came to catch a glimpse of the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both really love baseball, and we get to see the young kids, who, we don\u2019t get to see a lot of, til a couple years down the road,\u201d Jeff and Claire Simmons said. They too relocated to be closer to their favorite team each spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cI moved here seven years ago and we got married, so I drag him to spring training now,\u201d Lee Bishoff said, pointing to her husband.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpring training is such a short time, you know I want to get as much out of it as I can,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Matthew and Jake Cohen are from the DC area, and came for the long holiday weekend to check out the Nationals and Orioles in action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re one of our favorite teams,\u201d Matthew Cohen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe heard about the new facility. We wanted to check that out. We wanted to see some of our favorite players,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what are you here for?\u201d Cohen bent down to ask his son Jake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here to get a lot of autographs from players,\u201d the younger Cohen said, holding a binder of Orioles baseball cards.<\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t the only ones hoping to score a memento.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah it would be a pretty cool thing to get an autograph from a major league baseball player,\u201d Conor Kerr said. His family traveled from Massachusetts for the occasion.<\/p>\n
Another Orioles fan named Lane has been coming down for three-years straight from Maryland.<\/p>\n
\u201cLove the team, love the players,\u201d Lane said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s cold back home so gotta come down to warm up a little bit,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n
And he nabbed a priceless score on Sunday morning. He got a baseball signed by his favorite player, Jordan Westburg.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s why we come out to spring training. We want to support them and all, and it\u2019s cool when they recognize the fans and give back a little bit,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
As special as the day was for Lane, Howard Heiland may have had a special week taking in the Orioles action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I got close to 40, I counted 36 last night,\u201d Howard Heiland said smiling, showing off his fireman\u2019s helmet filled with signatures.<\/p>\n
It was the first trip to Sarasota for the lifelong Orioles fan, and one he won\u2019t soon forget.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh man, this is an experience,\u201d Heiland beamed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA trip of a lifetime,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
When asked if he\u2019s thinking of coming back again he answered pretty quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah, I\u2019m definitely coming back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It seems the Suncoast might be looking to add a few more members to its lineup.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – One week after the \u2018big game,\u2019 football was far from the minds of folks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,2538,5,581,4,125,151],"class_list":{"0":"post-577133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baltimoreorioles","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-jordan-westburg","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-orioles","15":"tag-spring-training"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116085019532815048","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577133","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=577133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}