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Awaken, disabled baseball fans. Forget the bone-chilling cold in Conway, N.H., and Park City, Ut. It’s time for spring training!

Want to get away for a weekend or week’s vacation? You can watch Florida or Arizona tune-ups for the 2008 season at some of the most accessible baseball “yards.”

There’s the roar of the crowd, gleam of the grass, and the best hot dogs.

‘Forgiving country’
Yes, there’s been chicanery in sports to question your attention. Baseball has always had its dubious doings and doers.

In a review of 2007, Associated Press writer Jim Litke observed: “It wasn't so much about breaking records; it was about breaking the rules and even the law.”

“Look,“ Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling wrote on his blog after the steroids report came out, ”if you ordered HGH or steroids in your name and there is documentation to prove you did, please do us all a favor and admit you made a mistake. This is a pretty forgiving country."

Okay, instead of attending, you could view baseball movies; some don't star Kevin Costner. Among my favorites are Bang the Drum Slowly, The Fan, Field of Dreams, For the Love of the Game, A League of Their Own, Major League, and The Natural.

Still, being there is the treat, and the game tends to transcend some of the guys who play it.

Serious baseball
My wife Barb (post-polio) and I love baseball; so do our friends Carolyn and David Davis. The four of us are Philadelphia Phillies fans—through thick and thin, mostly thin.