Baseball fans, how about this for a 2005 season fantasy: the Baltimore Orioles vs. the new Washington Nationals in a "parkway" World Series.
It might as well be a thousand miles away. And in a way, it will be -- in Florida this year at spring training, as players shake off the winter rust and fans get three chances to see the Baltimore-Washington Parkway neighbors play ball.
Barring an unlikely World Series matchup, the teams will not meet again during the regular season from April to October.
But spring training is just around the corner, and for the casual vacationer as well as the diehard fan, the preseason games scheduled across much of Florida usher in a new year of baseball.
Some folks make the trip every year, and who can blame them? The tickets are cheaper, the ballparks more intimate and the weather a lot warmer than up north as temperatures usually reach the low 80s by early March.
And this year, there's that Baltimore-Washington thing to spice up spring training -- as if the first swings by Oriole newcomer Sammy Sosa are not enticing enough.
Debut Day for the Washington Nats -- formerly the Montreal Expos -- is March 2, at home in Space Coast Stadium in Viera against the New York Mets.
The Orioles open spring training on the road March 3 against the Florida Marlins at Jupiter, and play their first home game March 4 at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, also against the Marlins.
And that sets the stage for the March 5 meeting in the first of the Orioles-Nationals best-of-three 2005 Interstate 95 Series -- which I have named for the overcrowded highway between their spring training homes about 150 miles apart.
Driving time: about as long as a nine-inning game, barring the traffic jams that induce many travelers to favor the Florida Turnpike a few miles to the west.
The Orioles and Nationals meet twice more, March 13 and March 25, both at the stadium in Viera, a planned community near Melbourne.
Beyond any real or imagined rivalry, the teams bus across much of central and south Florida on their spring training schedules -- the Nationals with 34 games and the Orioles 31.
The Nats' last preseason game will be April 3 at RFK Stadium in Washington -- a tuneup for the ballpark before the home opener April 4 against Philadelphia.
The Birds fly out of Florida for the last three: two in Oklahoma City against the St. Louis Cardinals, and an April 3 tuneup in Philadelphia against the Phillies the day before the Oriole Park home opener against Oakland.
