Spring training for the world champion Boston Red Sox is under way and vacationers from up north are loving it.

10:00 AM EST on Tuesday, February 22, 2005

BY STEVEN KRASNER
Journal Sports Writer

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The weather reports from back home weren't very enticing.

Snow. Cold. Possible freezing rain.

But that was in Rhode Island, many miles and temperature zones away from the Boston Red Sox spring-training complex. Down here, that forecast was out of sight and out of mind.

While Red Sox fans woke up to a "chilly" thermometer reading of 58 degrees at 6:30 yesterday morning, the generally cloudless sky and warm sun had pushed those temperatures up to close to 80 degrees while several Rhode Islanders were watching Sox pitchers and catchers work out.

As they stood behind ropes waiting to see whether some of their heroes would stop to sign an autograph or two, shoveling white stuff off the driveway was a mere faraway thought, vivid enough to make them chuckle at the weather conditions that befell family and friends in Rhode Island.

Sympathy, though, was in shorter supply than the sunscreen that was necessary to combat the strong sun, which rarely hid behind the puffy white clouds.

AP photo

Boston Red Sox first baseman David Ortiz has the fans in good spirits in his first day at the team's spring-training complex in Fort Myers, Fla.

"I feel warm," said Jessica David, 13, a student at Western Hills in Cranston, enjoying the school vacation week in sunny Florida. "I feel so terrible for them."

Then Jessica, a big fan of slugger David Ortiz and pitcher Bronson Arroyo, paused for a bit of sun-baked dramatic effect.

"That was my serious attempt to be sincere," smiled Jessica, wearing a black knit cap that celebrated Boston's 2004 World Series title, the team's first world championship in 86 years.

Standing next to her was her mother, Michelle, a fifth-grade teacher at the Maisie Quinn Elementary School in West Warwick.

Michelle David was prepared for the day. She was wearing a Sox championship hat on backwards, the better to point and click the camera she was holding, along with a shiny white baseball and a Sharpie marker.

"How do I feel about the poor people back there?" Michelle David said when asked about the snowbound Rhode Islanders.

"Oh, the poor people back there. I work very hard to get down here every year. We always come to Florida for the vacation week, but this is the first year they've been training during that week. And we're not home shoveling. I hope it all goes away by the time we get home," Michelle David said.

By the reckoning of Larry Flynn, of Providence, the chairman of the Board of Canvassers, he had endured enough snow at home to be able to enjoy yesterday's fine Florida weather while his home state was under snowfall again.

"This is the third day of our vacation and we're loving it. After the snowstorm in January, I'm happy to be here watching our team," said Flynn, 54.

"We're working on our tans," chimed in Stan Severance, 64, of North Scituate, a real-estate appraiser.

"It's nice not to be cleaning off my car," added Kelly Flynn, 24, of Providence, a teacher in Central Falls. "I'm glad to be on school vacation week. I called a friend back home and she said it was freezing and I was out by the pool. It's a tough life."

Paula Silvia's sympathy level wasn't terribly high, either, when it came to the subject of snow in Little Rhody.

"Who cares?" said Silvia, of Exeter, a retired Warwick teacher. "It's 77 degrees. It's sunny. It's warm. I'm watching David Ortiz swing the bat. Life is good."

Much better than it was back in Rhode Island, that's for sure.