This is the Sunday column that ran in the paper.

Spring training is for everyone.

It's more than just the players getting back into game shape. It's more than trying to win the fifth outfield spot in Philadelphia or trying to make the jump from low Class A Lakewood to Class AA Reading. It's also about coaches learning players, about managers practicing signs, about umpires reaquainting themselves with the strike zone.

Everyone needs spring training, from pitchers and catchers on the field to reporters and fans off it. Photographers need to get accustomed to the flow of a game, remembering when to push the button to get that shot of a batter connecting with the ball, his face contorted in a combination of concentration and determination.

Sports writers have to get used to all those cliches the players spout. You know them if you've seen Bull Durham' -- �I'm just trying to help the team,� �I'm just taking it one game at a time,�' and so on. Editors have to watch over the writers, making sure they remember Valentin from Valentine and which prospect is a right-handed pitcher and which is left-handed.

My friends could not hide their jealousy upon hearing I'd be here for a week with my responsibilities centered around watching baseball, talking about baseball, and writing about baseball. My coworkers scoffed when I left the office before my trip, as I insisted that I was coming down here to work. "Yeah, but it's still Florida,� they said.

Hey, I can't help it if it's consistently 70 degrees and sunny here.

Spring training is a chance for everyone to get back to America's pastime. Like Barb and Don [name withheld] of Sea Girt. They went five long months without a baseball game to go to and came to Florida for three weeks' worth to prepare for the summer.

�We come down and stay at my brother's condo in Clearwater or visit friends,� Don said. �We travel all over. We try to see a game at all the spring training sites. So far we've had only one day (in two weeks) we didn't go to a game.�

I ran into the Laws Friday at the Carpenter Complex. It was hard to miss Don in his navy blue Lakewood BlueClaws t-shirt. The couple's three-week tour of Florida spring training sites is an evolving March tradition. How else will they get ready for the season?

�I have to get in my practice keeping score,� Don said as he pulled out pieces of paper with tiny markings indicating hits and runs and outs. �I don't have a book or anything, I just have four or five games on a sheet.�

This summer, the Laws, who used to live in Pittsburgh, will check off the final four major league parks on their list -- those in Houston, Phoenix, Oakland and San Francisco -- in a three-week span in June. What started as a quest to see some of the classics before they closed has become quite a hobby.

�I think we've seen about 40 or 50,� Don estimated. �We started out trying to see the parks they were going to tear down, and we started going to minor league parks in between.�

With that, he pulled out the �Baseball Travel Map,� a laminated map of the country with every major, minor and independent league ballpark marked along all the major highways criss-crossing America. The back listed each team with their phone numbers and web addresses.

�I picked this up in a Barnes and Noble at the Mall of America,� he said. �We get some shopping in for Barb, too.�

It doesn't matter who's playing, though Barb is a Pirates fan and Don grew up rooting for the Giants, and continues to do so. �I'm still a fan,� he said. �Just because your team moves doesn't mean you stop rooting for them.�

Friday's stop at the Carpenter Complex was made on the way over to Jack Russell Stadium to see the Phillies take on the Red Sox.

�We haven't seen the Red Sox yet this spring, so we thought we'd head over there,� Don said. Sound logic to me. �We just thought we'd come by and see how (Greg) Legg's guys were doing.�

The Laws said they took in a game at Lakewood several times last summer, when Legg managed the club. He'll move up to Reading this summer and Jeff Manto will take the reigns in Ocean County. The Laws will be back, too -- when they're not on the road around America.

�It's great they put a team in Lakewood,� Don said. �And when they weren't at home, we'd drive all the way over to Trenton.�

There's a lot of baseball to watch. Good thing we have spring training.