All day an unreal, nearly paralyzing feeling. It seems so impossible that we’re blowing off work and school that we have to keep repeating the news to each other like lottery winners: “We’re going to Florida!”

In the Charlotte airport, waiting for our connection to Fort Myers, I look around the gate for fellow pilgrims, but the one kid wearing a cap is a Brewers fan. It’s only when we’re on board that the hard core begin dribbling in—four single guys in their twenties, all big enough to be players, in various Sox hats.

We get in after midnight and the airport’s crazy. In the long line at the rental-car center, half the people are in Boston garb. Fort Myers is an endless grid of strip malls and stoplights, and everyone drives like they’re either having a heart attack or trying to find an emergency room for someone who is. We fly past Mattress World, Bath World, Rug World. It’s Hicksville, Long Island, with palm trees and pelicans.

Our hotel has personality—unfortunately it’s the personality of a lunch lady turned crack whore. Bikers and twentysomethings early for spring break wander the parking lot, knocking back Coronas and margaritas to the thumping of a ragged cover band. The hotel’s assurance on their website that they don’t rent to anyone under twenty-one seems less a defensive measure now than an admission of a long-standing problem. It’s one-thirty and the music is thundering up from the stage, one floor below our balcony. The song ends and the drunk girls scream. The drunk guys go “Wooooo!”

I want to get up and be at the practice fields by nine. I expect it’ll be just me and Steph, but Trudy comes too, driving while I navigate. We peel off the Tamiami Trail and in a few blocks we see City of Palms Park. According to the website, the training complex is two and a half miles straight down Edison, but there’s no parking. You’re supposed to park here and ride a shuttle bus to the practice fields.