Let’s play! Buxton digs in, MLB spring games finally begin

By JAKE SEINER
AP Baseball Writer

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Baseball’s bitter 99-day lockout moved a little further back in the rearview mirror when spring training games began Thursday. The Boston Red Sox hosted the Minnesota Twins in sunny Fort Myers, Florida, to ring in the start of exhibition season, and three more games were on the schedule in Arizona. Spring games were supposed to begin 20 days earlier, but a nasty fight over the sport’s economics plunged baseball into a longer, darker winter than usual. The lockout ended last Thursday, camps began Sunday, and the race toward a delayed April 7 opening day was on.