Day Five Continued - Taking the Mound

I write this post on Saturday morning, a full four days after taking the mound against the pros. Reentering the real world hasn't been as easy as I thought it would. In any free moment, I play the tapes of our games in my head. Sometimes I replay the good plays, but just as often I go over what I might have done differently.

I played a lot of third base this week, and it took a good four or five games to work through the fear - between the ball screaming at you and the long throw (and my previously mentioned tendency to invoke Mackey Sasser), it can be a long day out there. The worst is when you make a nice pick and then throw it away, and I did that a couple of times. My favorite defensive play came while pitching - I came off the mound during the no-hitter to field a little dribbler down the line and made a strong throw to first to just get the runner. That was fun, although my thighs are still mad at me about that one.

So on to the pro game. My inning of pitching during the pro game is one that I've played over in my head many times this week because it was so damn much fun.


Tradition Field

In the twenty some odd years they've been doing Mets Fantasy Camp, the pros have played something like four hundred three inning games against the campers, and their record is like the Harlem Globetrotters' - 395-3 or something crazy like that. The realistic goal in the pro game is to emerge with your pride, although a win would be nice.

My immediate goal was to emerge with two arms of relatively equal length. You could practically see my pitching arm throbbing, but I was going to go in and tough it out. I had been thinking about pitching in the pro game for over a year now, and I wasn't going to let a sore arm ruin that.

So I took the mound and Doug Flynn dug in. A word here about Doug Flynn - this guy, who came over in the Tom Seaver trade, is just an amazing guy. I used to love to watch him play second base as a kid, and it was a thrill to meet him. But like many of the pros here, what stands out is the guy's limitless generosity. Ask him a question on the way to the field, and he'll stop for ten minutes to answer it. He just seemed genuinely pleased to be there - he always had a smile on his face, he'd sign anything you put in front of him, and he really, really knows the game. And as Bobby Wine's assistant on the kangaroo court, he was hilariously funny.

So there I am standing in pitching against Doug Flynn, THE Doug Flynn. I was pretty much reduced to throwing sliders because I could no longer locate my fastball, and besides, these guys would hit my fastball back into the locker room. So I threw slider after slider as near to the outside corner as I could, and Dougie reached out at one of them and grounded easily to Chris Berlingo, who made a nifty play at short.

Then Tim Bogar stepped in and also hit a playable infield grounder, but he reached on an error. No matter. Art Shamsky grounded to first and Anthony Young popped to center, but it dropped for an unearned run.

Then in stepped Steve Henderson, another one of my favorites. Hendu is another one of those guys who seems genuinely glad to see you, always has a smile, and always has something nice to say. I suspect that for the most part, the pros at fantasy camp self select. They enjoy the cameraderie, and they like lacing up the cleats again. They must feed off the energy of us geezers, and they really like teaching, even if what we learn only gets used every year or two.

So Hendu says, "are you ready, Brownie, 'cause here it comes," or some such, and digs in in that Steve Henderson way. Hendu used to own the inside corner because he was so strong he could hit a ball off his pinky into the gap in right center. I asked him to go easy on me, and maybe he did, but I hope he didn't because he hit a lazy fly ball to left to end the inning. Line score - one run, no hits, two errors. I had no-hit the pros, and gave them five outs to boot.


With Hendu After the Game

Anthony Young was pitching for the pros, and it wasn't pretty. He barely broke a sweat, although he was throwing about 80-ish mile an hour fastballs. I think we managed one hit. I got jammed on a fastball and grounded to second and my right hand was swollen for days. It was nasty, but for days I walked around saying, "See this swollen hand? I got jammed by Anthony Young." Nice.

So that was the day, and the week, and I'm really sad that it's over. We had a great, great bunch of guys, and we played a very difficult game pretty well. I achieved some personal goals, but I've still got a lot of room for improvement.

I met some people who really inspired me, and who reminded me what a wonderful game baseball is and how lucky we are to be able, at this age, to spend a week being a kid again. I'm already thinking about when I can go back.

I'm not quite done writing. I hope to spend a day or two a week profiling some of my fellow campers, some of the employees who work so hard to make this a great experience, and to talk a little more about a player or two. If anybody out there has photos to share, send them along and I'd be happy to put them up.

When the photos I ordered from the team arrive, I'll post them as well - some of them are really cool.

Finally, we'll be heading back to Shea for a game on the field in July, and I'll be sure to write an update about that then.

Thanks for reading.

Day Three - The Injuries Mount

Well, day three’s in the books.

I would like to now give a run down of my current physical condition. Moving from south to north: I have a black toenail from stopping short on the basepath and somehow causing trauma inside my cleat. The outside of my left and right ankles have some hard to describe pain. My left knee is mad at me for sliding. Both quads and hamstrings are so sore that to get into a car I have to lift my legs by the pants. My left hip is sore from diving for a pop fly. My right elbow is throbbing (more on that later). Nearly every muscle in my back and shoulders is tender. We think that baseball is a genteel sport because there’s not contact, but let me tell you, all that starting and stopping, and running at full speed only to stop yourself by hurling yourself the ground and skidding across it takes its toll. These are unnatural motions and should be avoided under most circumstances.

But I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Teammate Larry Goldstein hit a single to center only to go down halfway to first with a nasty hamstring pull – he tried to get up, but went back down again a few steps later, and to add insult to injury, he was thrown out at first by the center fielder.

Another teammate, Jim Forde took a fastball to the thigh that produced a bruise that was amazingly reminiscent of the one I had last time. His has a nicer variety of colors than mine did, though, and you can actually see the stitches of the ball in his bruise, if you look closely enough. Really, it’s a wonderful bruise. Amazingly, as the day progressed, the colors actually matured. They began with the warm yellows and pinks of sunrise, but developed into the more emotional and profound blues and purples of a memorable sunset. If it weren’t on a man’s leg, you could perhaps see the think hanging in a museum. Jim’s all banged up – he had rib cage surgery recently and has spent a fair amount of time in the trainer’s room, but he’s getting his money’s worth – out there playing his heart out and having a great time.


If you look closely, you can actually see the stitches on Jim's bruise.

The trainer’s room is a hypochondriac’s delight – with every manner of emollient, salve, and pain reliever known to modern chemistry, not to mention a staff of trainers who could practically heal the dead.

(On a side note, a coach offered to lead a chapel service this morning, and it was suggested they start in the trainer’s room to help the lame, and move on to the ump’s lockers, where they might help the blind to see.)

My favorite locker room item is, and I’m not making this up, a tub of stuff called “Boudreau’s Butt Paste,” for diaper rash. This, I have not had occasion to try just yet, but the week is not over yet, so you never know.

Anyway, Jim Forde is, to my mind, the quintessential fantasy camper – here to do the thing he always wanted to do but never did.


Boudreau's Butt Paste - They Say it Works

The day was a lot of fun. I finally got to pitch. Remember all that talk about a two seam this and a four seam that? Well, when you get on the mound, sometimes all that stuff goes right out the window. Because in this league, the number one thing is to throw strikes, and if you’re futzing with a cut fastball or a sidearm sinker or something, pretty soon you’ve walked the bases loaded.

So I pretty much stuck to a fastball and slider (I throw my slider just like a fastball, except with a very unnatural and unrecommended twist of the arm that makes it curve). And things worked out pretty well. I pitched a complete game, striking out nine or ten, and only giving up one run. The best part was snaring a screamer back through the box to end a rally. We won 8-1, and it was a really, really satisfying game, made possible by, among other things, an inside the park grand slam by Joe Oesterlie, who chugged around the bases and slid under the tag at the plate. Long run.


The obligatory post-pitching photo.

In the second game, we were down 2-0 to Ron Swoboda’s team, came back to take a 3-2 lead, and watched it slip away as they scored a run in the sixth and another in the seventh with a very contested walk off hit. So we’re 2-2, and missed our chance to qualify for the two game playoffs. The bottom line is that while we’re here to have fun, we’re also here to win, and it was disappointing to be close but not close enough. We have two more games tomorrow, and we’ll still play to win, but we’re now just playing for pride.

This evening was kangaroo court – in which fines are handed out for crimes and misdemeanors real and imagined. It is presided over by Coach Bobby Wine and his able lieutenant, former Reds and Mets second baseman Doug Flynn. Now Bobby is a really funny guy because he has an incredible wit but an even greater deadpan – he actually reminds me of Buster Keaton – and he almost never breaks it.

I have a feeling that kangaroo court may be the ultimate “you had to be there” experiences, but Bobby serves as judge, jury, and executioner, handing out fines to people for doing stupid things, talking back, speaking out of turn, or just because he feels like it. An example – Wine: Who here likes their wife better than baseball? (A number of guys raise their hands) Wine: That’ll cost you two dollars each for lying! Bobby fined former Met pitcher Anthony Young (yes, the one who lost 27 games in a row and I don't recommend reminding him of that unpleasant fact) two dollars for wearing an ugly shirt. And so on.


Doug Flynn explains AY's fine for wearing a loud shirt as Judge Wine brings down the gavel.

So tomorrow it’s two more games and the banquet dinner, and a lot of Advil.