The morning after we arrived in Tucson, I left the family in our new apartment and headed for Hi Corbett Field, the spring home of the Cleveland Indians.

The venerable old ballpark was nothing like Cleveland Stadium. While the vast grandstands in Cleveland held up to 80,000 spectators, cozy Hi Corbett maxed out at 9,500. But there were three other baseball fields set up behind the stadium and it made a perfect spring training venue.

I admit I was a little nervous as I drove to the stadium that first morning. Since AP sports writers rarely travel with the teams they cover, they generally remain somewhat anonymous. Sure, the players get to know their faces and maybe even their names, but they are generally kept at a distance.

I wondered if anybody on the Indians would even know who I was when I popped up in such a foreign situation.

I needn't have worried.

As I walked into the quiet clubhouse on that Monday morning, several players, including Dennis Eckersley and Rick Manning, were standing in front of their lockers, preparing for the first workout of the day.

Eckersley turned when he heard me enter the room and got a huge smile on his face.

"Hey, look who showed up in Tucson," he said, walking quickly toward me with his hand outstretched. His buddy Manning and several other players followed suit and soon I was surrounded with half-dressed men shaking my hand and slapping my back. I even got a couple of manly hugs.

Even Rico Carty, who rarely acknowledged my presence in Cleveland, shook my hand and said, "Nice to see you."

"What brings you here?" Eck asked.

When I said I was in Tucson for the duration of spring training and I was going to be writing about their spring exploits for the good people of northern Ohio and beyond, there were smiles all around.

I then walked into manager Frank Robinson's office. Frank looked up from the paper he was reading, looked startled and said, "What the hell are you doing here?"

It was early and neither of us was in any hurry. We just sat and chatted for a while. I got Frank laughing, telling him about our crazy trip from Cleveland to Tucson. He particularly enjoyed the part about "borrowing" diapers in the airport. It was the longest conversation we had ever had.

After that, I went back out into the clubhouse and was flagged down by pitching coach Harvey Haddix, always a friendly guy. He gave me a couple of tips about when and where to talk with players during the busy days of spring training.

As a baseball fan, I had often wondered what it would be like to go to spring training, although my dreams were usually just about sitting in the sun and watching games. But the greeting I got from the team made reality better than the dream.

I sat in the shade on the third base side of the grandstand that afternoon and watched an intrasquad game and it was simply idyllic, kind of like baseball heaven.

Over the next few days, a rhythm developed, with interviews in the morning, games in the afternoon and a couple of hours of writing. One of the best parts of spring training was eating dinner with my family almost every night since there were only two night games the entire spring.

The AP control bureau in Ohio was Columbus and the powers that be decided to send out a promotion letting the members know that Norm and I would both be covering spring training that year.

Now it was time to get busy and start sending stories back east. And, even though it was a lot of work, it was some of the most enjoyable work I've ever had.

Standing in the Indians clubhouse that first morning it was like a kid in a candy shop, knowing I had my pick of talking with anybody in the room.

For my first spring story, I chose Rocky Colavito, once the slugging star outfielder for Cleveland and now the first base coach and hitting instructor.

He was one of my favorite players growing up and I wanted to get to know him better. My goal that day was to see if he would talk about the chances of the Indians being a better ball club in 1977.

He was sitting in the the tiny coach's room off the main clubhouse when I walked in. He looked away from me, hoping, I guess, that I would leave him alone. But I walked up and said, "Hey, Rocky. I'd like to ask you some questions."

Rocky grimaced, shrugged and said, "All the questions have been asked already, but I suppose I have to talk to you. What do you want to know?"

To this day I don't know why I said it, but trying to look very serious I asked, "What's your favorite ice cream flavor?"

He looked incredulous for a moment and then started to laugh.

"Vanilla, I guess." he answered. "What else do you want to know?

The rest of the interview went pretty much the way I wanted it to and he was always cordial to me after that.

I found out from the other Cleveland writers that it was okay to leave the press box during the games and find a comfortable place to watch from until you had to write your game story. You just had to keep score and a few notes.

When the starting pitcher was pulled from the game, or a regular was done for the day, I'd usually head for the clubhouse for a quick interview before going back to the stands and asking somebody to catch me up on the scoring.

It was a lot different from the regular season, and a lot more fun.

There was also a lunch room, where a light meal was served before home games. Like the Wigwam Room in Cleveland, it was a great place to come up with notes and stories and to hear baseball lore.

In my second year covering spring training, broadcasting star Howard Cosell became a regular at lunch for several weeks.

Cosell was a close friend of new Indians' president Gabe Paul and he and his wife spent several weeks with the Pauls at their spring training home. Howard came to the ballpark almost every day.

One memorable lunch, Howard was expounding about how the members of the media were all on the take, only out for what they could get without paying. He had just taken a large bite of a tuna fish sandwich when I asked him rather loudly, "So Howard, did you pay for that sandwich?"

He nearly choked, spitting out tuna fish and bread and turning red in the face. To his credit, he then said, "Guess you got me there" and laughed along with the rest of us.

During that period, I got a call from New York, telling me that I was to cover the nationally televised boxing match between up and coming star Sugar Ray Leonard and an Argentinian fighter named Daniel Gonzalez, which was being held in Tucson that March.

My orders were to find a stringer to cover the baseball games while I took a couple of days to cover the fight.

I grew up watching the Friday Night Fights on TV with my dad, who was an avid boxing fan. He even took me and my brother Richard to University of Wisconsin boxing matches. I had covered some Golden Gloves fights, but never a professional bout.

Two days before the fight, I went to the community center where Leonard was training and met him, trainer-manager Angelo Dundee, who had trained Muhammed Ali, and the rest of the Leonard entourage. They let me hang out with them for the day and it was a totally different milieu than I had dealt with before. It was friendly but with an edge.

I also went to talk to the challenger, who spoke no English. His manager was a famous Argentine boxer, Carlos Monzon, who, fortunately, did speak some English.

Through his manager, I asked Gonzalez what he thought of Sugar Ray and his boxing style. The young man answered with a burst of Spanish and Monzon grinned as he told me, "He says he ain't seen him, yet."

Another couple of questions and I had enough for my advance story.

On the day of the boxing match, I found my seat near ringside, right behind Cosell, who was broadcasting the fight for ABC. I listened as Cosell hyped the fight, saying that Gonzalez could be a big surprise for Leonard, who was expecting to win easily. After all, Gonzalez came into the fight with a 52-2 overall record, with 31 knockouts.

I knew that record was probably misleading since almost all of those fights were against lesser competition in Argentina. But, in sports, you never know.

The bell sounded and the fighters stepped to the center of the ring and touched gloves. After that, it was no contest.

Leonard dropped Gonzalez with a right to the chin at 1:15 of the first round. After Gonzalez managed to get back on his feet, Leonard backed him into his own corner and knocked him down again with a hard right and an even harder left.

The youngster struggled back to his feet, but Monzon stopped the fight. It had lasted just over three minutes.

I wrote a quick lede for the wire and raced to the challenger's dressing room to see if he was okay and if I could get a quick quote.

Gonzalez, looking stunned but generally okay, was sitting on a table rubbing his arms and legs. Through Monzon, I asked him what he thought of Leonard now. Monzon translated with a shake of his head, "I still ain't seen him."

After that, it was back to baseball, which was fine by me.

I wound up covering the Indians' spring training for three years and, in each of the last two, my mother-in-law, Dorothy Rosee, joined us in Tucson. She was pretty easy to live with _ at least for me _ and it gave Judy and me a built-in babysitter for some relaxing evenings out.

In February of 1979, we moved to a different apartment complex, which had a large, very nice interior couryard that had picnic tables, grills, a pool and lots of grass for the kids to play on.

One night, Judy said, "You're always talking about how nice the players and coaches are. Maybe we should think about having them over for a dinner."

At first, I thought the idea was crazy. How would we deal with so many people?

We started talking about menu and logistics and came up with the idea of two dinners - one for the players and their families and one for the manager and his coaches and the team executives and their families. The other Cleveland writers were also invited to either night.

Several other families in the complex got wind of the idea and offered to take part in setting it up and doing the serving.

Judy and her Mom made up huge pots of chili, loaves of garlic bread and several big bowls of side dishes. The neighbors, who all wanted to meet the Indians, chipped in with desserts and drinks and more.

To our great pleasure, the turnout by the team people for both events was terrific and everyone had a good time. Those dinners cemented my status as an insider with the team. Unfortunately, that summer was also my last in Cleveland.