Monday, March 22 1999

Good morning and welcome to Day 3 of the 6th Annual Spring Training Trek 1999!

Today's baseball game against the Cleveland Indians will be played tonight, leaving the day open for me to get in touch with my more animal instincts at Disney's Animal Kingdom. This new theme park joined Walt Disney World a little under a year ago, and the newest exhibit, Asia, had its Grand Opening just this month. Outside the park is the Rain Forest Cafe where a long waterfall, reminiscent of Niagara Falls, pours in greeting.

The first stop in the Animal Kingdom was Camp Minnie-Mickey, a tribute to Disney's cavalry of animal characters. The Festival of the Lion King, featuring Lions, Warthogs, Elephants and Giraffes, along with acrobatic monkeys and birds on a wire, uses songs from the Disney movie of the same name to celebrate all the animals that make up the Animal Kingdom. Pocahontas and her Friends is a show that uses a talking tree, a teen-age twig, and a cavalcade of walk-on animal guests to teach us that it is up to us to save the forests.

Of course, the most important area in Camp Minnie-Mickey is the character greeting trails, where you can get autographs and pose for pictures with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Chip (and Dale), Flick and more. The one thing my 5 year old nephew wanted was a picture of me and Pluto. The kid has weird tastes, but his uncle always comes through with both Pluto and Goofy as a bonus.

Disney's Animal Kingdom is a cross between a zoo and an amusement park.

Centered around the Tree of Life, Animal Kingdom seeks to educate and entertain guests with information about animals and how humans affect them. Lush green walkways provide glimpses of a variety of animals, which choose whether or not they wish to be seen. The walkways are crafted with fossilized leaf impressions and jeep tire tracks, rock and tree formations molded and realistically painted to fool both human and animal.

Lunch was served at the Rain Forest Cafe, a chain of theme restaurants that combines a marketing of nature with an assortment of foods. Guests dine under the shadow of giant mushrooms, moss-draped trees, and the open stars. While I ate my Planet Earth Pasta (linguine w/Italian sausage), animatronics gorillas, elephants, hyenas, and other animals watched me.

After lunch, I toured the Tree of Life gardens. The Tree of Life is a large tree with intricate carvings of nearly every animal known to Disney Imagineers. Beneath the Tree of Life (appropriately so) is the Bug's Life theater, where a rambunctious 3-D animated presentation on how hard it is to be a bug continues the trend in bringing the performance to the audience by using hidden tricks in the seats to stimulate unsuspecting guests with acid sprays, sting bug bombs, mosquito bites, and yes, insecticide.

Once returned to the surface, I popped into the new Asia area to the Flights of Wonder performance where live birds from pigeons to hawks fly on queue to educate the audience on the fun with fowl. After the show, I ran into the Artimals parade, a parade of artistic renditions of various animals boogie to an African beat. Crossing into Africa, I made my way to Duka La for the Kilimanjaro Safari. This jeep-driven attraction takes guests into the backlands of the animal reserve that makes up the foundation of Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Having returned safely from Kilimanjaro, I took a stroll through the Pangali Forest Exploration Trail, whose feature inhabitants are a family of silver-back gorillas, including a new born gorilla and baby hippopotamus. The next stop was Conservation Station, reached by taking the Wildlife Express train past the veterinary maintenance areas specially designed to provide care to each type of animal maintained in the park.

Conservation Station provides a look at some of the backstage ways Disney preserves and protects the animals of Animal Kingdom using the latest techniques in veterinary medicine and animal management.

Like many other areas in the Animal Kingdom, the magnificence of the animal world is couched in a more stern message of guilt over what man has done to destroy the wildlife that the Animal Kingdom celebrates.

This moralistic attitude is directed mostly at children, which is appropriate since their point is that the adults are too busy screwing up the planet to listen to the message. I am going to reserve judgment on the validity of this argument; I just like going nose to nose with wild animals I do not encounter every day back home in the urban city.

Ok, tonight's game was against the Cleveland Indians. Greg Maddux was on the mound for Atlanta, which means that I missed the top of the 1st inning in the 4 minutes it took me to get my dinner from the concession stand. In the bottom of the inning, the Braves manufactured a run to take an early lead. The Indians went quietly in the 2nd inning with three Maddux pitches. In the bottom of the inning, Eddie Perez lined into right field to lead off the bottom of the 2nd inning. Walt Weiss poked through a hole into right field. Greg Maddux laid down a perfect bunt, but the throw went to 3rd base to get Perez, leaving runners on 1st and 2nd.

Chipper Jones found a hole into left field scoring Walt Weiss. The throw to 2nd got away and Maddux proceeded to 3rd with runners on the corners and 1 out. With Ozzie Guillen (who played 2nd base tonight) at the plate, the Indian's Charles Nagy balked, sending Maddux home and moving Jones to 2nd. Guillen then lined into center, scoring Jones.

Chipper Jones then popped to center, but Kenny Lofton could not hold on to the ball, putting runners on the corners with still just one out.

Brian Jordan flied to left, and Guillen tagged third and scored. Ryan Klesko flied out to left to end the inning. But not before the Braves put 4 runs on the board from 5 hits and one Indian error.

In the top of the 3rd, the Indians get the first of only 3 hits and no runs off Greg Maddux. In the bottom of the inning, Danny Baustista walked and then stole 2nd. The throw went into center field, moving Bautista to 3rd for the Indian's second error of the night. Eddie Perez doubled to left, scoring Bautista. While all this is going on, a young man behind me was explaining to his father how to cross your legs when sliding into 2nd so you can push off and make for 3rd, just like Danny Bautista. Who says education is wasted on the young.

Walt Weiss singled to left, putting runners on the corners with still no outs. Weiss then stole 2nd, after which Maddux grounded to 2nd and Andruw Jones struck out swinging. Ozzie Guillen popped to short to end the inning. But if you have been able to follow all this, the Braves scored 1 more run off two hits and an error. In the top of the 4th, Maddux uncharacteristically walked David Justice to load the bases but was able to get out of the inning.

In the bottom of the inning, Chipper lined into right field for a hit, but Brian Jordan grounded to short forcing Chipper out in a fielder's choice. Klesko lined out at 2nd and Bautista struck out to end the inning. In the bottom of the 5th inning, Guillen grounded to short, followed by Walt Weiss driving one into right field. Maddux bunted up the 1st base line to move Weiss to 2nd. Keith Lockhart pinch hit for Andruw Jones, popping up to left field where the Indians watched the ball all the way to the ground, scoring Weiss for the Indian's 3rd error.

Marty Malloy took over at 2nd base in the 6th inning, and Gerald Williams filled in at center. On the mound, Mike Cather inherited a 7 run shut-out, and makes short order of the Indians despite an error at 1st by Klesko. In the bottom of the 6th, Chipper Jones popped to right. Jordan sent one to the right field fence, looking to stretch a double into a triple when 3rd base coach Bobby Dews threw up a stop sign. Klesko popped to short, but Bautista lined into left field scoring Jordan. The throw to the plate got away, allowing Bautista to make 3rd base on the error. It was the Braves 8th run and 15th hit.

Eddie Perez then dropped one into center, scoring Bautista. Walt Weiss next doubled just inside the 1st base line, moving Perez to 3rd with two outs. Marty Malloy singled into center field, scoring Perez and Weiss.

Mike Cather struck out to end the inning, but the Braves had added 4 runs on 5 hits with one Cleveland error. Cather went on to strike out David Justice to start the 7th, then got a couple of infield outs to end the inning.

In the top of the 8th inning, Marty Malloy moved to 3rd base, introducing Marcus Giles at 2nd. Non-Roster Invitee Joe Winkelsas came in to pitch, striking out his first opponent and getting two quick ground outs to end the inning. In the bottom of the 8th, the Braves loaded the bases with no outs on a hit, a 4th Indians error, and a walk. Walt Weiss struck out, then Malloy hit into a double play to end the inning giving the Indians the only bright spot to look back on.

In the top of the 9th, Winkelsas got into 1-out trouble starting with a walk and an error scoring a run and erasing the shutout. A infield out scores a second run, but Winkelsas struck out #3 to end the game. Final

stats: Braves had 11 runs, 18 hits, and 1 error. The Indians had 2 runs, 5 hits, and 4 errors. It was also Bobby Dews birthday. Happy Birthday, Bobby. Tuesday's game is against the Mets in Port St. Lucie, so you know what that means... ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!

Fuskie