When most people are at Walt Disney World, they take pictures of castles, characters, rides and palm trees. And I did do that. But, as a person with a new camera and a burning urge to use it and a baseball blog in the dead of winter, I also took pictures of basically every single thing baseball-related I saw while at Disney World in the week before Christmas.

Under the jump, you can see those things:

First off, we stayed at the All-Star Sports Resort, which, of course, is sports-related, with basically everything there having some sort of sports theme. Just outside of the lobby, for example, they have images of great athletes past and present. Alas, they have yet to replace Cardinals-era Albert Pujols (top left in this image) with somebody like Mike Trout or Miguel Cabrera, but Babe Ruth (to the right) is timeless:

The Gift Shop at the hotel, meanwhile, has a sign that pays tribute to the Goofy classic, How To Play Baseball.

While I was staying in a football-themed building (it was closer to the buses), there were, of course, also baseball-themed buildings. It took me until the last day to really walk around and take pictures during the day, but I was able to get some night-shots early on:

This is a baseball-themed pool. That’s Goofy on the mound.

This is me trying to be artistic.

So, the first place I saw at Disney, other than the hotel, was at Downtown Disney, which is basically a giant outdoor mall that is there. One store, for example, sold sports merchandise (much of it Disney-ized, such as having Mickey Mouse in the colors of big-time colleges, for example). One of the things that was there was this neat station where they would make bats, balls, etc. for you if you ponied up more money than I have:

Also, Disney World has an inexplicable fascination with Ryan Howard:

…Yeah, I don’t get it either.

Anyway, the biggest baseball thing in any actual park is probably a restaurant called “Casey’s Corner” in the Magic Kingdom, which, as the name suggests, runs on a “Casey at the Bat” theme. Sadly, my camera had died by the time I went in it. Drat! And, of course, there is the Braves spring training facility at ESPN Wide World of Sports, but I didn’t go there.

So, with that, here are some more pictures from the All-Star Sports Hotel:

THE EXPOS LIVE!

An umpire’s view of a game that Huey, Dewey and Louie were holding on a Tennis Court… for some reason. I can’t remember exactly, but I think that Donald was on the other side holding on to a racket all angry that his nephews aren’t playing a match with him.

So, neat, huh?