It's a hit! Spring training scores with residents

Until the season officially begins, Southeast Missouri baseball fans are focusing on spring training. From right: Janie Young, Shirley Vowels, Mable Tenkhof, Marilyn Brown, Bethany Brown and Bill Wainwright, father of Cardinals' pitcher Adam Wainwright, at a 2010 spring training game at Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Fla. Submitted photo

For some local baseball fans, that's not a problem, especially for those who've experienced spring training.

Lifelong Cardinals fan Mike Marsh of Sikeston said it took him 50 years to attend his first spring training.

"It was almost surreal -- a dream come true," Marsh recalled.

Marsh and his family traveled to Vero Beach, Fla., in March 2005, which was also Sikeston native Blake DeWitt's first year of spring training with the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodgertown.

"We went down to see Blake, and the Cardinals trained only about 30 miles away (at Roger Dean Stadium) in Jupiter, Fla., so we made a vacation out of it," Marsh recalled.

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