February 23, 2003
Surprise, Surprise!
The Royals hitters are finding Surprise Stadium a breeze:
Outfielder Carlos Beltran put on an stirring power display Saturday when he and several other Royals got their first swings inside Surprise Stadium as part of a free Fan Fest for the public.
Oddly, Beltran then went and got his eyes checked. (The exam is part of the spring training routine for all players. He passed.)
Beltran wasn't the only player who routinely flexed his muscles at home plate. Just about everyone had fans scrambling for baseballs on the grass berm beyond the outfield wall -- even middle infielders Carlos Febles and Angel Berroa.
"It's going to be fun for us here," Beltran said. "This is the first time I've been in Arizona. The ball carries a lot."
I wonder if this is going to cause a problem for the Royals. Given their history of player moves, I can't say that they have a lot of sabremetric savy. There are going to be hitters who have great springs whose bats are going to disappear when they move to the pitcher's paradise of Kaufmann Stadium. The A's face a similar situation every year and it doesn't seem to affect them (May is their bad month). Maybe the A's are used to it (or maybe the management understands and adjusts for the problem). Still, I bet there will be a number of stories about the great springs the Royals hitters are having, and sometime in May some writer will wonder what happened.
Correction: See this post.
Posted by David Pinto at
07:58 PM
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Baseball