Anthony wrote in earlier this week asking if the Angels were staying at the same hotel as the Dodgers did in their trip to St. Pete because it was reported during the Dodgers' stay that the hotel teams stay in during the trip here is haunted.
All teams stay in the Vinoy resort when they travel to play the D-Rays and, yes, over the years there have been odd ghost stories. Perhaps the most famous was former Reds pitcher Scott Williamson complaining that in the middle of the night someone - or something - was pushing down hard on his chest. On the fifth floor of the older wing of the hotel, it has been reported that an elderly lady in her nightgown stands at the end of the hall, looking confused. When people call the front desk, they probably nod accordingly and know that it is a common occurrence.
In the past few years the Angels haven't had any complaints regarding ghost sightings, until this trip.
In the middle of the night last night, pitching coach Mike Butcher was woken up at 4:11 a.m. when his bed side light mysteriously clicked on. He reasoned that the turn switch on the light was stuck between "on" and "off" and through the night it flipped to on.
"I thought it was kind of odd," Butcher said. "Usually on a getaway day game I like to sleep with my curtains open and the sun comes up but I was thinking 'Man it's kind of early to be getting up right now.' The Scooby Do Mystery Machine came by and they assured me everything was OK."
An Angels official - who didn't want to be named - said that a magazine in their room mysteriously was opened this morning to page 37. After trying to re-create the oddity by opening the blinds, turning on the air conditioner and moving briskly past the magazine, the official could only reason it was a ghostly occurrence.
Third base coach Dino Ebel told other staff members that he heard the toilet running throughout the night, but that could be explained by the neighborhood the Vinoy is in - a highly flooded area right next to a harbor.
(For more information on the supposed ghost stories at the Vinoy, visitors to this area can take a tour - http://www.ghosttour.net/ and for more stories on such types of apparitions check out http://www.hauntedbaseball.com/)
