Day: June 26, 2026

Baseball ⚾️ Math involving the Grapefruit League & the Florida State League involves 25 teams ÷ by 14 Cities / 14 Stadiums 🏟 / 2 levels of Ball and a free standing Daytona Beach ⛱️…

The Grapefruit League is the Major League Baseball ⚾️ home for half the teams (15). The other half play on the West Coast in the Catcus League.

The Florida State League is Class A baseball with 10 teams.

This brings you to the total of 25 teams altogether.

6 of the Grapefruit League teams do not play in the Florida State League. Those six are stand-alone for spring only.

Venice – home for the Atlanta Braves

Sarasota – home of the Baltimore Orioles

Fort Meyers -home of the Boston Red Sox

West Palm Beach – 🏡 of Houston Astros

Port Charlotte – 🏡 of Tampa Bay Rays

West Palm Beach – 🏡 of Washington Nats

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There is just one team in the Florida State League but not the Grapefruit, and it’s not the only way that it is isolated. Daytona does not have any other teams in their part of the state.

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That leaves 9 that play in both circuits.

Using the schedule for tomorrow, here are the ten teams (9 + Daytona) that play.

So 25 is the number of total teams. Now we enter the math phase !

Yes, there are 25 teams, but certainly not 25 parks or cities involved.

The 9 true duplicates drop the numbers down to 16.

The number of cities gets dropped down to 14 because Fort Meyers has 2 teams, and West Palm Beach does as well.

The number of Stadiums 🏟 is even trickier because it goes from 25 to 16 and then – Palm Beach Cardinals of the FSL share the park that Jupiter calls home. Both of the West Palm Beach teams share their parks at 5444 Haverhill Road North.

To visit all of the home parks for the 25 teams, it would require visiting 14 cities and 14 ball parks. 9 parks that one could catch a live game in and 5 where one could just visit.

9 on the Gulf Coast, 4 on the Gold Coast, Lakeland in the center, and to complete the Trek, a runner to Daytona.

107 miles removed from the next closest ballpark. The only brightside to Daytona is that there’s a Buc-ees there !!

The chase to 25 / 14 / 14 /10 (Live) currently sits at not many, and the flight out to Canada is next Friday afternoon.

The League doesn’t play on Mondays, so that leaves Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to peck away at the list.

I’ve been to Tampa, one of Fort Meyers, and the double up park in Jupiter

You only go to Daytona Beach ⛱️ if it is the last one standing, Lakeland would be next to last.

Baseball ⚾️ Math is Fun !!!

Friday was a fun day with three granddaughters and their father ! Key Largo, 2 National Parks and a Nascar track !!

The view out the Hotel 🏨 in Key Largo !

Week #3 of 7 is winding down, and it was great to receive some sharp looking nuggets from Girls 👧 Soccer ⚽️ Coach Adrienne Harris McGuire !

Chris and the girls head back up to Page County tomorrow evening, but we still have a bit more time left to enjoy the moment !

We will certainly miss the Senior Class next season, but here are two of our building blocks for the future !

Alisia Torres Lopez
(Sophomore)

2nd Team All Three Rivers District – Forward

Alisia is only a sophomore, but she was one of our go-to players for our offense this season. Watching the impact she has on the field and in our offensive half, you would not be able to tell she was only a sophomore. We moved Alisia up to a forward position this year after she played as a midfield wing last season. She did a great job with this transition and picked up on it very quickly. Alisia and Savannah did a great job working together up top. She is always very hard working, gives 110%, and is a very competitive individual, which has helped her grow so much this year.
      Alisia also did a great job of dropping back into our midfield to help on defense this season. She finished the season with 5 goals and 3 assists. She had 2 game winning goals and 1 game winning assist. I am very excited to get to watch her continue to grow as a player and an individual. We are very excited to get to have Alisia back for 2 more seasons!!
Nathaly Contreras Rodriguez
(Junior)

2nd Team All Three Rivers District – Forward

Nathaly has been our most improved player this season and played a huge role in our midfield. She has grown so much as an individual and a soccer player over the last year.
    Nathaly plays in the midfield wing position. She does an amazing job of always giving 110% to make sure she is getting up into our offense along with also making sure she gets back on defense. This season, we went up against multiple very strong midfield wingers.
We had Nathaly mark them every game, and she did an exceptional job of shutting them down. She is a kid who never gives up even when things get hard. She always has a smile on her face and is ready to get everything she has into every practice or game.
     Nathaly finished the season with 1 assist, but the stats do not show how much of an impact she made on the field for us this season. We are very excited that she will be back with us for one more season next year for her senior year.

Jacqueline Arellano-Torres finished her time on The Hill in a rather strong fashion !

Jacqueline Arellano-Torres
(Senior)

2nd Team All Three Rivers District – Defender

Jackie really stepped up for us this season as a captain and on the field. We graduated most of our backline last season along with both center backs. Jackie played defensive midfield for us the past 2 years, but this year, she stepped up and moved back into a center back role. 
She has done an amazing job learning the center back position quickly while also helping her teammates around her, who were also learning the defensive positions. Jackie was always open to what we asked her to do on the back line and was always working to be the best defender she could be. She has been a very solid defender for us all year.
Watching her play the position this year, you would not have been able to tell that Jackie had never played the position before. Overall, she did an outstanding job for us and played a huge impact on the team getting 7 shutouts this year, along with only giving up 17 regular season goals. She also got onto the scoring sheet twice this season, finishing with 2 goals from the center back position.

Congratulations to Jacqueline Arellano-Torres and her family !

Team USA had Tim Howard, and our Lady Cavaliers had Alexis Sheffey protecting our net !

Alexis Sheffey
(Senior)

2nd Team All Three Rivers District – Goalie

VHSL Honorable Mention All Region 3D – Goalie

Alexis has been a very important piece in our defensive half of the field her entire career. She has had another huge season for us collecting 146 saves along with 7 shutouts. This season we had a very new back line. Alexis did an awesome job with stepping up talking to her defense along with helping them throughout the game/season.

      She also did a great job of getting off of her line more this season to prevent dangerous opportunities for opponents on through balls, corner kicks, and set pieces near the box. This was huge for us this season. During the regular season, she only gave up 17 goals. This was a huge improvement for us because we gave up 16 goals in two games against one team last season.

  There were also only 3 regular season games where more than one goal was given up. She had an exceptional game against the 2a state runner up this year, only allowing them 1 goal, and she had 22 saves in the game. She had many other huge games this season, but that was one that stood out. She also was able to come out of the goal twice this season to play in the field.

     She took advantage of those opportunities in the field, scoring 3 goals and getting 1 assist. Alexis was a captain for us this season and was a great leader on and off of the field. She has now written her name down in the program’s record books. Alexis now holds the all-time saves program record with 579 career saves. She also holds the program record with most shutouts in a career with 28.

   Alexis also holds the record for the lowest goals scored against average for a career with 1.33 goals per game, and that’s with her having over 40 career starts.

Congratulations to Alexis Sheffey and the Sheffey family !