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CHAIN OF LAKES PARK Capacity 7,000 Year Opened 1966; renovated in 1993 Dimensions 340L, 425C, 340R Surface Grass Winter Haven office 863/293-3900. Website indians.mlb.com. Local Airport Orlando or Tampa. Advance Ticket Prices VIP Box Seats, $23; Lower Box Seats, $16; Upper Box Seats, $14; Bleacher Reserved, $11; Outfield Bleacher, $8; Berm & Disabled Seating, $7 On Sale Now. Ticket Line 1-866-48-TRIBE. Tickets by Mail Specify the number of tickets with the date (plus $3.00 handling/order) and mail to: The Cleveland Indians - Winter Haven Chain of Lakes Park 500 Cletus Allen Drive Winter Haven, FL 33880. Address 500 Cletus Allen Rd. (off of Cypress Gardens Blvd.), Winter Haven. Directions Winter Haven is 50 miles south of Orlando and 50 miles each of Tampa. Chain of Lakes Park is located near the corner of Hwy. 17 and Cypress Gardens Blvd. If you're coming south on Hwy. 17, turn left at Cypress Gardens Blvd.; the ballpark is on your left. If you're coming west on Cypress Gardens Blvd., the stadium will be on your left.

Concessions are located in the back of the grandstand.

One of the older spring-training facilities in the Grapefruit League, Chain of Lakes Park does indeed sit on the shores of a lake -- Lake Lulu, to be exact -- and is regarded as being one of the more scenic ballparks in Florida spring training. It's been used for spring training since its construction in 1966, but it almost bit the bullet this past offseason when the Indians went shopping for a new spring-training venue, first discussing a new training facility in Ft. Myers with Lee County, sharing City of Palms Park with the Boston Red Sox  -- a deal that fell through because of financial reasons -- Cleveland's lease in Winter Garden expires after spring training 2003, and then considering a move to Port Charlotte to the Charlotte Sports Complex, the former Texas Rangers' training site. In the end, the Indians decided to sign a new deal with Winter Haven to stay in Chain of Lakes Park.

Which is great news for spring-training fans, as Chain of Lakes Park is a classic Florida baseball venue; only Holman Stadium comes close to matching Chain of Lakes in terms of fidelity to the era it was constructed. A 1993 renovation did nothing to diminish the ballpark's mid-1960's charm: the covered grandstand is perfectly proportioned, and if you wander a little around the grandstand's small concourse you can easily see the other practice fields in the facility as well as Lake Lulu. While there's a good amount of seating here, there's not a lot of room for amenities: there's a small concourse in the back of the grandstand and a small concourse near the souvenir shop down the third-base line.

There are six levels of seats for spring training: VIP box seats, lower box seats, upper box seats, reserved bleachers, outfield bleachers and berm seating. While the weather in March isn't usually scalding hot, you'll still want to opt for a covered box seat in the grandstand if you're a far-skinned Cleveland skin seeing the sun for the first time in 2004.

Chain of Lakes Park is unusual in spring-training venues in that no Florida State League or Gulf Coast League team uses the stadium the rest of the baseball season.

The Cleveland Indians have trained in the following locations: Cleveland (1901); New Orleans (1902-1903); San Antonio (1904); Atlanta (1905-1906); Macon, Ga. (1907-1908); Mobile, Ala. (1909); Alexandria, La. (1910-1911); Mobile, Ala. (1912); Pensacola, Fla. (1913); Athens, Ga. (1914); San Antonio (1915); New Orleans (1916-1920); Dallas (1921-1922); Lakeland (1923-1927); New Orleans (1928-1939); Ft. Myers (1940-1941); Clearwater (1942); Lafayette, Ind. (1943-1945); Clearwater (1946); Tucson (1947-1992); Winter Haven (1993-present).

Chain of Lakes Park was built in 1966 as the spring-training home of the Boston Red Sox. After the Red Sox shifted spring operations to Ft. Myers, Chain of Lakes did not have a tenant until the Cleveland Indians -- desperate for a spring home when its intending new home in Homestead was heavily damaged by a hurricane -- signed a lease to train there.

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