Table of Contents

Prologue - Under the March Sun ; One - Myths, Madcaps and Misbehavior: Spring Training in the Nineteenth Century ; Two - St. Petersburg's Mr. Baseball ; Three - Spring Training Takes Root ; Four - A Sportswriter Helps End Separate but Hardly Equal ; Five - Mr. O'Malley's Dodgertown, ; Six - The Bottom Line Crowds Out the Box Score ; Seven - Red Sox Nation Flies South ; Eight - "Let the Tourists Put in their Two Cents" ; Nine - Changing the Dynamic: Lee County and the Twins ; Ten - Fields of Broken Dreams ; Eleven - Breathing Braves Air ; Twelve - The Chief Big Ho and Car Rentals: The Cactus League Comes of Age ; Thirteen - How the Dodgers Almost Left Vero Beach the First Time ; Fourteen - The Oasis League: Las Vegas Ups the Ante ; Fifteen- A Tale of Three Cities ; Sixteen - St. Pete Bids Spring Training Adieu ; Seventeen - Camelback Ranch ; Eighteen - Bottom of the 9th in Vero Beach ; Epilogue - "Go Team, Go!" ; Appendix: Major League Spring Training Sites, 1901-present ; Acknowledgments ; Selected Bibliography ; Source Notes ; Index

About the Author

Charles Fountain teaches journalism at Northeastern University. He has worked as a sports reporter and is the author of Sportswriter: The Life and Times of Grantland Rice (Oxford, 1993). He lives with his wife, Cathy, in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

Reviews

"A revealing combination of sports and business history. Written in brisk, engaging prose, it sheds light from an unusual angle on American society, from demographic changes through race relations on to park construction in all its dimensions."--The Boston Globe
"In all, Fountain's words about the annual rites of spring training read like a poem, with historical context swept in at the appropriate times."--Tom Hoffarth, Los Angeles Daily News
"This book regularly reminds us that although spring training parks are getting bigger, although spring training prices are getting higher and although the spring training atmosphere is getting more impersonal, those diamonds in the roughs of Florida and Arizona still offer fans the best close-up look at baseball."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"This book is the perfect spring training companion. Take it with you to the berm at Lakeland's Joker Marchant Stadium, or the newly built boardwalks in Port Charlotte, where the Rays currently train. Settle in and read a few chapters in ancient McKechnie Field in Bradenton, or at the spanking clean facilities at Disney or at Jupiter's Roger Dean Stadium. It plays well at the Bright House complex in Clearwater or at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. Pick any venue.
It's a great read at all of them."--Tampa Tribune.com
"Fountain, a journalism teacher at Northeastern University, has written that rare baseball book that also serves as a cultural history. He makes a convincing case for Al Lang, mayor of St. Petersburg before World War I, as the progenitor of spring training as we know it. 'Under the March Sun' has so much atmosphere you can smell the cocoa butter as you read."--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"A tremendous look at 'the story of spring training'...[V]ery enjoyable and succeeded in surveying one of the best parts of the baseball landscape."--Baseballbookreview.com
"A very detailed look at the business of spring training, with a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. Especially interesting are things like the section on Boardwalk and Baseball, the short-lived theme park near Orlando that was once the Grapefruit League home of the Royals."--Worcester Telegram & Gazette
"Charles Fountain has captured the importance of spring training in baseball with Under the March Sun. I commend him for bringing to life this most enjoyable time of year for every baseball fan."--Peter O'Malley, President, Los Angeles Dodgers, 1970-98
"Where has this book been? Why has no one written it before? The poetry has oozed out of Florida and Arizona every February and March forever, rhapsodies about rebirth and sunscreen and the virtues of watching major-league ballplayers up-close while wearing a good pair of Bermuda shorts, but no one has chronicled the nuts, bolts and civic intrigues associated with baseball's spring training. Not the way Chuck Fountain has. Terrific stuff."--Leigh Montville,
author of Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero and The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
"Definitive, fascinating, a ground breaking cultural and sports history of spring training from humble origins to mega million status today. A winner!"--Harvey Frommer, author of Remembering Yankee Stadium, and Red Sox vs. Yankees: The Great Rivalry