(EDITOR’S NOTE - Times News sports writer Rich Strack is attending spring training games in Florida this week. He will be writing about his experiences attending the games, while also sharing his thoughts and memories as someone who has been a devoted baseball fan for over a half century. Today, the final of a 3-part feature, Strack takes in one last game in Florida and begins his countdown to the regular season.)

By Rich Strack

tnsports@tnonline.com

It’s game three on my spring training saga at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Florida. The Mets host the Houston Astros in a six o’clock start.

These exhibition games in the Grapefruit League are meaningless to how a team will play during the regular season. Last spring, the Red Sox were unbeaten in their first 11 pre-season games, but finished last in the American League East once the record counted. In 2016, the Cubs left training camp with an 11-19 record and went on that year to win the World Series.

The Mets took the field and Francisco Lindor jogged out to his position at shortstop. That afternoon, while I sat on Jensen’s Beach, watching the tide roll in and out, I thought about how many times a player like Lindor has gone onto the field before an inning and come off the field after the third out. I did the math. In nine years, he’s played 1,223 games. If he had played all nine innings of those games, he would have jogged out to and off from his position 18 times a game for a total of 22,014 times.

I wondered if his jog on and off the field is as routine as the ocean tide, or does Lindor still get a thrill each time he steps over the baseline? Is baseball a job or is it a game? The Dodgers’ Freddy Freeman once said, “If you’re not still the boy in your baseball game, you got no business playing anymore.”

The game begins. Baseball fans are quite intelligent about the subtleties they see that the casual fan might not know. The Astros’ first hitter takes a swing and I hear a white-haired lady sitting behind me say, “He’s not getting his hips turned before he starts his swing.” She knew all about Luis Severino too - the Mets starting pitcher.

The former two-time All-Star with the Yankees, Severino is trying to recapture the status of once being one the game’s best pitchers after season-ending injuries to his shoulder and elbow and Tommy John surgery that replaced a ligament in his elbow with a tendon.

The Astros’ hitter bounced a slow grounder wide of first base and Severino raced over to cover the bag and stumbled awkwardly but got the out. The lady behind me said, “Oh, please don’t get hurt again!” It’s obvious that she’s a devoted fan of the game.

A longtime veteran of many teams struck out twice in the game for the Mets, further reducing his chances to make the 40-man roster going North. He signed an MLB contract when he was 17 years old. Now, past 30 - which is getting old in a young man’s game - he might be facing a cruel end to a career that could send him home with no resume for a job in the real world. Like so many other veteran ballplayers who get released, he will have no advanced education and no employment skills. The game of baseball can swallow you up in your youth and spit you out as a man without a future. It’s just the way it is.

The Astros bring in Josh Hader, a fireballing lefthander and one of the game’s elite relief pitchers. Up steps a Mets’ wannabe and I think how unfair this matchup is. The kid swings feebly at three pitches for a strikeout. He must have felt like he was waving a toothpick against Hader’s 98 mile-per-hour fastball.

The Mets took a 5-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but Houston forged a two-out rally to score four runs and tie the game. In the bottom of the ninth, the Mets wannabes won the game by loading the bases before a sacrifice fly scored the winning run. The nobodies just yet will remember this game tonight, but no one else will.

Clover Park, like every MLB spring training complex, is much more than just another place to play baseball. It’s an arena like the old Roman coliseum where the emperor’s thumbs up or thumbs down decides the fate of the fallen gladiator. For most of the young wannabes, they will return to the minor leagues after getting a bite of the carrot waved in front of them, a taste they want again, to get to the Show and play before 40,000 fans on a Friday night.

For the veteran and fallen gladiator, he’ll get a thumbs down from the emperor in the front office. He might be taking off his spikes for the last time and after playing a boy’s game for so many years, he’ll become a man without destiny.

I leave Clover Park believing the game belongs as much to the fans as it does to the players. I take one last look at the field and I imagine hearing the deep voice of James Earl Jones ringing in my ears.

“This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

Opening day is in two weeks and life, as I know it, will begin again.