RIP – Spring Training in DADE & BROWARD

March 19, 2008, Ft. Lauderdale, FLA wide shot of Ft. Lauderdale Stadium during the St. Louis Cardinals 12-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles at Ft. Lauderdale Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.JC Ridley/CSM


Yesterday the Baltimore Orioles reached agreement with Sarasota city and county commissioners on a 30-year deal to move the club’s spring training games to Ed Smith Stadium.

The announcement means the likely end to 47 year old Ft. Lauderdale Stadium, which hosted the New York Yankees from 1962-95, and the Orioles from 1996-2009.

The Orioles and the city had reached an agreement to refurbish the aging ballpark back in 2007, but the FAA, who owns the land on which both the park and neighboring Lockhart Stadium sit, demanded an increase in annual payment to the agency to nearly $1.3 million.

The news means that Florida Atlantic University will not be under as much pressure to build their proposed on campus football stadium. The football team has played their home games at Lockhart Stadium since 2003. Lockhart was to be razed to make room for the proposed refurbished Orioles complex.

In the 1980’s, the Orioles called Bobby Maduro Stadium in Miami home. The Yankees were at Ft. Lauderdale Stadium, the Braves and Expos at West Palm Beach Municipal Stadium and the Rangers were at Pompano Beach Municipal Stadium. The Cleveland Indians were to occupy a stadium in Homestead until Hurricane Andrew nearly destroyed it in 1992.

They are all gone now.

The closest spring training home to South Floridians is now in Jupiter, where the Marlins and Cardinals train and play at Roger Dean Stadium.

The Sun-Sentinel has a photo gallery of the stadium throughout the years here.

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Old School – Slides

Photography has evolved tremendously in the past 15 years. Everything from capturing images, processing, editing and publishing has changed. Film, including slide film, is just one of many photographic processes that have nearly or completely vanished in the digital age.

Reversal film is a type of photographic film that produces a positive image on a transparent base. A slide is an individual transparency (one frame or exposure) mounted in a cardboard or plastic housing which can be used in a slide projector. Slides were also the preferred format for many publishers, due to its high reproduction quality.


Do you think the advent of digital technology has lightened the workload? Think again. Every frame I shoot still gets edited and scrutinized, now its on a computer screen instead of a light table.

I actually miss using slide film. Looking at slides from an NFL game on a light table was like opening a pack of baseball cards as a kid. It was the highlight of my week during the fall.

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Shoot the Moon

Tonight, Jan. 10th, the biggest full Moon of 2009 is outside and in full view here is South Florida.

Perigee full moons come along once or twice a year. Tonight’s perigee moon is about 16 hours from the month’s full moon. On January 30, 2010, the perigee and full moons will be just 2 hours apart.

The moon’s orbit is an ellipse, so when it is at its closest approach to earth, or perigee, the moon comes much closer to the Earth than at its apogee, or greatest distance, so it appears about 14% wider and 30% brighter than normal.

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Lets Shoot Two!

January 1, 2009: Knowshon Moreno of the Georgia Bulldogs is tackled by Kendall Davis-Clark of the Michigan State Spartans during the NCAA football game between the Michigan State Spartans and the Georgia Bulldogs in the Capital One Bowl. The Spartans were leading the Bulldogs 6-3 at halftime.


In the spirit of Cubs great Ernie Banks, on New Year’s Day I worked two bowl games, starting my day at the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, and finishing at the FedEx Orange Bowl in Miami.

January 1, 2009: Tyrod Taylor of the Virginia Tech Hokies in action during the NCAA football game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Cincinnati Bearcats in the Orange Bowl Classic. The Hokies defeated the Bearcats 20-7.

The drive between the two venues was 213 miles and it took 2 hours and 57 minutes with a little help with my lead foot and light holiday traffic on Florida’s Turnpike.

Combined I shot 3500 frames for the entire day.

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Crosley’s Field of Dreams

Saturday I photographed a wedding at the Powell Crosley, Jr. Estate in Sarasota. My reference to Crosley Field should ring a bell to baseball fans, as Powell Crosley, Jr. was the owner of the Cincinnati Reds in the 1930’s and 40’s and of which the stadium the team occupied at the time was named for.

Crosley built the estate, named Seagate, for his wife Gwendolyn in 1929. Situated on 62 acres next to John Ringling’s Estate on Sarasota Bay, it measures 11,000 square feet, and features 21 rooms including 10 bathrooms. The Crosleys used Seagate as their winter residence until Gwendolin’s death in 1939.

Purchased and renovated by Manatee County in the 1990’s, it is now used as a meeting, conference, and event venue. For a few thousand dollars, it can be yours for a wedding.

Below, the groom and his groomsmen pose in the “Ship Room,” a circular room that housed an unusual weather vane that displayed the wind direction on the ceiling.

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NFL = Not For Long

This week the annual NFL Owner’s Meetings are back in West Palm Beach, at The Breakers Resort. It’s also the fourth anniversary of my last ever assignment from the league. I shot the annual coaches photo and the coaches golf tournament when the owners last met at The Breakers in 2004.

Soon after, NFL Photos was disbanded, and the archive “returned” to its owners, most of which were the photographers who shot the pictures. I say “returned” because most of us chose to send out our portion of the archive to either Getty Images or WireImage. Many of us league photographers saw this move as a short sighted and a blatant disregard for the league’s history, in exchange for a quick buck from Getty, with whom the league wanted to sign an exclusive deal with. Instead of a coherent collection of still imagery, the archive would now be fractured and spread out amongst many entities.

Ironically, 2004 was also the beginning days of the NFL Network, the league’s upstart cable channel. NFL Network’s schedule was initially loaded with programming from NFL Films, the legendary arm of the league that has won 92 Emmys over the years. But now it seems the same “suits” that swept NFL Photos into oblivion have their sights set on the legendary film company started by Ed Sabol and his son Steve (below photo). Recently the league laid off over 7% of NFL Films staff, and the feeling from insiders is the NFL Network people and others with the league think NFL Films has outlived its usefulness.

It’s like Deja Vu all over again.

When I started contributing to NFL Photos in 1997 I thought I was set. Instead, my career ended up being slightly longer than that of the average for an NFL running back.

As former NFL coach Jerry Glanville famously said in one of those NFL Films highlights, the NFL stands for “not for long.”

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