After a tremendous 14 plus hour road trip to Fort Myers on Sunday, a Monday to remember at JetBlue Park, I figured a mellow Tuesday in Southwest Florida was in order. Thus, Rachel and I took the roughly 1 hour trip south to beautiful Naples, Florida. Naples, according to my Dad (a 30 year resident of SW FL), is very high end, very posh, and the beaches are just incredible. In all my time traveling to SW FL for visits, I never took the trip south to Naples so I was eager to prove my Dad’s theories on Naples accurate. And he was absolutely spot on. Naples, Florida is a tremendous Florida destination, even for a day trip like ours. The crystal clear waters of the Gulf, the white sandy beaches, the estates, the mansions, the shopping centers, the glitz and glamour – my Dad was 100% correct. Awesome day trip experience to Naples.
On the return trip back to Fort Myers, we stopped over at a baseball park in Naples called Fleishman Park. I walked the baseball, softball, and recreational park to check out the Naples baseball experience and captured a few photos of the park and baseball surroundings.
And this beauty which needs no caption…
After a brief stop at one of the Naples shopping centers, Rachel and I headed north back to Fort Myers. I got to thinking about the couple from the Red Sox game, Sean had attended FGCU (Florida Gulf Coast University), and where on the map the university was. It turns out the school and its baseball field were right off Route 75, which we so happened to be traveling on. After a few lefts and rights off the highway, we found ourselves in the parking lot adjacent to Swanson Stadium, home of the FGCU Eagles Baseball Team.
Other than Sean, I did know of one other alum of FGCU. A LHP that many in Red Sox, White Sox, and now Braves fanbases have cheered on for over a decade. Chris Sale was an FGCU Eagle, a YD-Red Sox in the Cape Cod Baseball League, and is now one of the best pitchers of his generation of Major League Baseball. He is a Cy Young Award winner, a World Series champ, and has one of the most awkward looking deliveries in the history of MLB pitching. Somehow, Sale gets the ball delivered with a ton of velocity and MLB hitters have been trying to figure him out for as long as he has been on the mound. Sale’s legacy is entrenched at Swanson Stadium, with his name and number retired just under the jumbotron in Center Field, which states was donated by the Sale family.
After taking a few photos around the perimeter of Swanson Field, I walked up to a few gates which had locks on them. I walked around the bleachers and over to the first base side of the field and happened to catch a student-athlete working out on the field. I yelled over to him, introduced myself, and chatted with him about the team for a bit. FGCU was on the road on Tuesday and the team was not on campus. The student-athlete was gracious enough to allow me 2 minutes to come onto the field to take a few photos. I was quick with my paces and jogged onto and off the field expeditiously so he could get back to his infield drills.
I thanked the student-athlete again as I jogged off the field and back to Rachel and the rental car. I was so psyched to get a photo of the field, see Chris Sale’s number retired, and get a sense of the FGCU Eagles Baseball vibe. By the way, the campus at FGCU is amazing and so impressive, let alone the outdoor swimming pool, beach volleyball court, and the baseball facilities. Overall, it was yet another incredible Fort Myers baseball experience, this time at Swanson Stadium, home of the Florida Gulf Coast University Eagles Baseball club.
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