Blue Eyes short-circuits baseball guys

But let a woman in your life. For more than 10 years, a gang of frozen Mainers has escaped the March agony of winter by making an annual pilgrimage to Fort Myers to view the spring training ritual of the Boston Red Sox. This band of zealots would stay at the seedy, yet proud, Royal Palm Motel, partly because it was a stone’s throw from the ballpark and partly for its rates which range from $60 to $90 (with kitchen) a day.

For those bargain rates, you get the company of devoted Red Sox fans (is there any other kind?) around the pool and for the walk to the park. After the game and the two-block walk from the stadium, the winter tenants assemble poolside for some ice-cold lemonade (and other potables) for a discussion of past, present and future Red Sox stars.

It was grim, but we loved the place.

But let a woman in your life.

Blue Eyes had assembled about six months’ vacation and decided to make the trip this year. The boys would fly in later. Blue Eyes and the Palm would never mix, some of my wiser friends predicted.

To say that the woman is clean is a gross understatement. She machine washes her cat food cans before she recycles them. Get the picture?

After a five-day drive (many stops), we arrived at the Palm. She stiffened as we pulled into the lot off Route 41. But that was nothing compared to her posture as we entered Room 120. She flicked the light on and looked up to find oh, about 75 dead bugs in the overhead light. I am sure they were there before, but I never saw them. She looked at the kitchen floor. She looked at the beds. She looked at the bathroom.

She never said a word. She sat on the bed and her shoulders started shaking. I asked (stupidly), “Are you crying?” She answered, in full-blown tears, “Nooooooooo.”

As any man knows, there is no argument for a woman’s tears.

We checked out and paid a day’s rent as penalty. I let her pick the hotel. It was either that or a road trip back to Maine without seeing a single ballgame.

We ended up at a plush (comparatively) hotel, with a riverside patio, Olympic-size pool, a breakfast buffet … and no bugs in the lights. But it was still no Royal Palm. The tradition had died with the gentle touch of a woman. I struggled manfully to handle my new accommodations, especially the pool.

Blue Eyes flew home two weeks later and the boys flew in.

By then the Palm was sold out and I had to break the news. We were moving to new quarters … at $40 more a day. They complained. They hollered. They moaned. I had violated the sanctity of The Palm.

But they all understood. They had all let women in their lives, too. They too had to adjust to the palm-lined pool, the river view, the spacious and clean rooms … and the breakfast buffet.

Yes, we had to drive to the park instead of walk. Those wrinkled old Red Sox fans around the Palm pool had been replaced by bikini-clad spring-breakers.

We learned to adjust.

Sigh.

Blue Eyes wants to come down to spring training again next year. But she wants a better place, on Sanibel Island. Much more money.

But let a woman in your life.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.