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Last Update: Mar 23rd, 2015
Port St Lucie Waiting for Parking

A Day Trip to Port St Lucie

Why would anyone want to spend a Sunday Afternoon in Port St Lucie? Well there's one thing and one thing only going on in PSL; the NY Mets play their spring training games there. As a Yankees fan this rarely interests me, however the Yankees play almost all of their Spring Training games on the West Coat, and Tampa is just too far to go watch a game that doesn't count. They play 1 game every spring against the Mets, and today was the day. So I figured I'd take a drive and catch a ballgame.

Regular tickets where sold out, and I didn't want to buy a ticket on stubhub until I was sure the weather was going to be good, because I wasn't going to a spring training game if it was raining or cold. I took a look on Thursday and there weren't any tickets under $100, which seemed way too high for a $20 ticket. I figured I'd wait until the last minute, when prices tend to go down. If all the tickets were sold out it wouldn't be the end of the world.

On Sunday morning I checked at 7am, and the prices weren't down at all. Some of them were up. $52 for standing room only; $50 for "The Berm", which is a grassy knoll out in right field where most stadiums have bleachers. Not what I was hoping for. At 9am some of the prices went UP, as I guess they were trying to squeeze the last minute people. A seat behind the plate was down from $260 to $170. That still wasn't happening.

At 10am prices all went down, but only by about $5. Ok, time to get dressed and ready to go. It's an hour and a half drive and the game starts at 1:10pm. I was going anyway, even if I had to pay a lot for the ticket.

At 10:30 I was all ready to go and I checked prices again. Not much change. My best choices were $94 to sit in the sun out in right field, or a 3rd base seat in the shade for $115. Yikes. The expected temperature was 87 degrees. I went for the shade.

Tradition Field Ticket

Instant download, print it out and I'm off to the car and on my way.

On the way to Port St Lucie

Once I hit 95, it was clear sailing all the way up. More traffic than I expected in Broward but once I got North of there it was pretty sparse.

The stadium is close to 95, so no need to pay tolls on the Turnpike. The biggest issue I had on the trip up was that I lost my radio stations up around West Palm and had to switch to 98.7 The Gator. Finally I hit my exit.

Port St Lucie Exit on Route 95

All of a sudden, everything was mucked up. Every car within 20 miles was headed for the game; I can attest to the fact that there is nothing going on within 50 miles of Port St Lucie.

Port St Lucie Traffic Jam

The stadium is only a mile from 95, but it was a slow crawl all of the way there. About 3 light cycles to get through each one. There were people along the way holding up signs "Parking $10". Parking at the stadium is only $8. I was wondering why anyone would pay more to park further way. Then I saw the mess.

Tradition Field Parking Experience

As I got closer I started thinking that it might be a lot easier to get out at one of the smaller lots across the street. But I ended up going into the "stadium" parking anyway.

Tradition Field Parking

$8, cash only. Once you pay, the parade continues. This reminded me a lot of the Saratoga Race Track, where you park on a lawn 1/2 mile from the track.

Tradition Field Parking

Finally I was parked. It didn't take as long as it could have. Door to door I made pretty good time even with the jam at the end.

Fort Lauderdale to Tradition Field, Port St Lucie

It wasn't really all that far from the ballpark. The parking lot is just way too small.

Tradition Field from Parking Spot

As I walked towards the stadium there were 2 dudes selling tickets. I didn't even want to know what they were charging. I'm sure I could have gotten them for much less than I paid, but it is ILLEGAL to buy or sell tickets on the property of an event in Florida, so it's not really worth taking the chance that they have a sting going on.

Tradition Park, Port St Lucie

The benefit of the slow crawl to park was that there were no lines at the gate. None at all.

The big attraction at the entrance is the Speed Pitch, where you can throw out your shoulder trying to convince yourself that you can throw as hard as Matt Harvey. I passed on that adventure.

Tradition Field Speed Pitch

Unlike professional ballparks, these minor league parks are quite small, so there 's a lot less walking. One ramp and you're up into the action.

Tradition Field Entrance

The concession areas behind the field aren't really designed to handle 8000 people, so it was pretty tight. Before the game everyone is scrambling to get food to take back to their seats.

Tradition Field Internals

The grills are fired up outdoors, yielding better hot dogs and sausages that you might get as some parks where they cook them on those 7/11 type rollers. This is backyard stuff.

Tradition Field Concession Grill

Feeling like Pizza? $6 a slice. Pair that will a beer for a cool $13.

Tradition Field Pizza

The line was a bit too long; I figured I'd come back during the game and get something; it's not like I was going to be glued to my seat. A-Rod, Gardner, McCann and Beltran didn't take the 3 hour bus ride from Tampa, so there would be a lot of nobodies playing.

Tradition Field Concession Line

I decided to just have a beer. I had a long drive home so I'd only be having one early. The souvenir cup was damn ugly, but the bud light was cold, and it was a hot day.

Tradition Field $7.50 Beer

It was about 1pm and they were gearing up for the national anthem, so I didn't have much time to check things out. They have a Tiki Bar out in Left field with picnic tables, but it was a zoo. I wasn't going to hanging out at the tiki bar.

Tradition Field Tiki Bar

I wanted to check out some views from areas where I considered buying tickets. This shot is at section 107, row K, which is the last row before the aisle.

Tradition Field View from Section 108

Better seats behind the plate, Section 104 row K.

Tradition Field View from Section 104

At this point I didn't really know how far up I was; row Y. Sounds bad but it's only the 25th row. I didn't realize it was the last row; all the way at the top.

I made it up before first pitch; the place was packed.

Tradition Field Crowd on 3/22/15

Even the last row in the stadium has a good view. Not a bad seat in the place.

Tradition Field, view from Section 206, Top Row

The people next to me were season ticket holders, and they filled me in on the advantages of the last row. First, you can stand up without bugging anyone behind you. There's also a ledge , you can sit on the back of your chair, and there's a nice breeze that blows through the opening. In the shade, it was a pretty comfortable deal.

One bad thing was that we were right under a speaker, and the music was very loud. These games are a lot like hockey games, where they blast music and have games and giveaways between innings. They do alot to encourage bringing kids to the games. Even at the normal price of $20 / ticket with the price of food and all it's still a $200 day for a family of 4.

View from Section 206 Row Y, Tradition Field

The game itself was boring as all hell; Matt Harvey was pitching well and CC couldn't get anyone out. The big event was a guy about 10 seats away who threw up on the people next to him. Security had to move a bunch of people who wanted no part of sitting in the area. Luckily this was in the 8th inning, so I was about ready to head back to Fort Lauderdale anyway.

The game went fast and the people next to me were good company, so I never did make it down to get any food. I just bought a bottle of water on my way out so I'd have something for the long ride home.

People were filtering out from the 7th inning on, so when I left early in the 9th more than half of the crowd was gone. There was no traffic jam at all in the field where I'd parked.

Something that surprised me was that my phone was draining fast. I don't know if I've ever been under 60% since I got the Plus, although I'm rarely out for more than 4-5 hours at a time. At 3:30 I'd been out for only 5 hours and my phone was under 20%. Apparently AT&T has weak coverage up here. It was 2% by the time I got to my car.

On my way out I passed these people where were "tailgating", although it was clear that they had no interest in the game. They just rolled up their RV and were grilling on the grounds. They were the only ones in the entire place doing it.

Tradition Field Tailgaters

An hour and a half later, I was home. I'm not sure if it was worth the effort; it certainly wasn't worth the $150 it cost me if you include the gas, but now I can say I've been to Port St Lucie.

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