If you’re in Fort Myers and looking for a fun day out, you need to go to a spring training baseball game.
On March 3, 2012, I went to see the Red Sox’s first spring training game at their new Jet Blue Stadium in sunny Fort Myers, Florida. I was very impressed with the new stadium, a replica of the famous Fenway Park adds a sense of nostalgia. It’s a great way for northerners to escape the winter chill and catch a baseball game. In this inaugural game of the stadium, the Red Sox beat Northeastern University 25-0 in a seven-inning game under their new manager Bobby Valentine.
Walking towards the stadium you can see a nice statue of Ted Williams. Outside they have a lot of food vendors reminiscent of Fenway Park. I could also see their mascot “The Green Monster” entering the stadium. There are photos of famous players and games hanging on the wall that you can see before heading to your seats. The in-house concessions were well prepared, for which you get a Fenway Frank and a beer.
I had been to games at the old “City of Palms Park” stadium and did not like that many seats were not covered. She made it hard to sit through games in the hot Florida sun. The new stadium has many contemporary-style panels that cover most of the seats. Under the press box they hung all the banners from past championships, and all the retired numbers are hung in the right field bleachers. They have a nice big video screen to watch the replays.
jet blue stadium
The layout and dimensions of the new Jet Blue Park are exactly like Fenway and it seats about 8,000 fans. It was packed for this first game. I sat directly behind home plate and got a pretty good view of the ballpark. The part of the stadium that I liked the most was the Green Monster, which has a scoreboard like the one in Boston. They also have Monster seats like Fenway.
7th inning stretch
To make it even more fun, they get fans involved by playing “Take Me To The Ball Game” and the Fenway favorite “Sweet Caroline.”
They have a nice gift shop that you can visit. We went and bought some souvenirs to remember our visit the day the stadium opened. Overall it was just a fun day out at a reasonable price.