The sun bathes the body gently with its springtime rays. This is the one time of the year when sweat has a fragrance of its own. This was Casey Stengel’s time of the year, even when he had nothing better to look forward to than the Mets. He’d lean on the bar at his hotel until there was nobody left to listen to his croaking voice.

Spring training — ah, sweet spring training. No manager has lost a game yet. Every kid pitcher looks like a 20-game winner; or did before the time managerial fashion required that the whistle blow after six innings.

There’s not a grump in a carload. I read the other day that Stan Kasten made this Emersonian observation: “Spring training can turn cynical old men into poets. It’s all fresh and everything’s new.”

He should know. When Stan operated with the Braves, he had cynicism mastered. Now, with the Washington Nationals, he’s even with the world. He hasn’t lost any more games than the Yankees — yet.

Once upon a time, there were only 16 teams. Now there are 30. Once upon a time they all headed for Florida. Now there are nearly as many teams in the Cactus League as in the Grapefruit League. Even the Dodgers have fled their old private grounds at Vero Beach, which they owned and operated. They took over an abandoned military base after the Great War and trained all their hired hands there, from the lowest bush leaguer to Sandy Koufax.

My first spring training was spent in a little citrus town just west of Orlando. I was housed in the Edgewater Hotel, which was five miles from the nearest pond. You didn’t need an alarm clock. As regularly as the dawn, a yard train backed along the squealing rails underneath the window and hooked onto to a string of boxcars loaded with citrus. Your main evening pleasure was spent playing pinball machines in a beer joint.

Players all stayed in the same hotel, ate in the same dining room, and so did all other teams until the rise of Marvin Miller and agents. The Braves still have a designated “team” hotel, one of those Marriotts you can get lost in, but only a few players stay there. The rest reserve condos, or golf villas, and some bring their whole families. Bobby Cox and Pam have a cottage of their own and most of the coaches live in a place called Reunion.

Togetherness applies mainly at the ballpark, not, as in days of yore, hanging around the team hotel. Ah, the names of some — the Manatee, Floridan, Angebilt, Jacarandra, Vinoy Park and Bainbridge, some air-conditioned, some not. Oh, yes, AC was not always guaranteed.

There were always some players who managed to locate trouble. A Cincinnati pitcher leaving a bar one night happened to run into a bullet from a revolver held by his wife. He survived, their marriage didn’t.

This, the era of $1.5 million utility infielders, has turned spring training inside out, except for the fans. This is still the place they can get closer to players, collect more autographs, though often many are from names they don’t recognize.

But it’s still spring, and it’s still training. It was the great Rogers Hornsby, now in the Hall of Fame, who was once asked what he did during the winter months.

“I stare out the window,” he said, “and see if I can see any sign of spring.”

Furman Bisher is one of the deans of American sports writing. The longtime Atlanta sports journalist is a member of the Georgia and Atlanta Sports Halls of Fame and in addition to his newspaper writing has authored multiple books on major figures likes Hank Aaron and Arnold Palmer. He writes periodic columns for the Citizen.