Hello all,
Got to sleep in this morning...until 8 AM. After a week of 6 AM wake up calls, this was positively heavenly!
Today, the final day, the bottom of the ninth found us all with three major things on the docket: 1) a three inning game v. the coaches and former players at the big stadium; 2)the closing banquet and 3) saying goodbye and packing (ugh!).
First things first. Went with team mate Donnie to the PDC (Player Development Complex) where we were all week to pick up my home uniform and work out a little in the gym to get the legs and the circulation going. Every day the clubhouse guys washed all our uniforms and any personal things we wanted cleaned and hung them up for us nice and neatly in our lockers. Had my "whites" washed on Friday so I could wear them to the big game today. Said goodbye to the staff and everyone tips the clubhouse team and the trainers and believe me, the tips we gave them were well worth all the effort these guys put in to make us all feel like pro athletes.
Came back and did some stretching, made some phone calls and did some emails while laying on some ice packs as a last stage of prep for the game. Hopped the van to the park and watched a couple of the three inning games along with my team mates all getting "psyched" for a crack at the big boys.
The games the last day with the pros are 3 innings and the pros are home, so if they are leading after the top of the third they don't have to bat. All the coaches played and most of the pitching was done by "Spaceman", "The Can" or Rick Wise.
It was cool as Sox radio man Joe Castiglione announced our team and each one of us ran out of the dugout and stood along the third base line. I was the third one announced for Treuel's Trolls. "Number 60, Hal Dash," Joe C intoned and I ran out onto the field. Wow! We then each went over and got a photo with all the coaches in front of the first base dugout. Will send a photo album around when I get back and the pro photogs shot zillions. I will buy a few plus I had my own camera with me. And, each of us gets a free video in a few weeks of the the whole week at camp.
So I come up to hit second in the first inning facing Bill Lee, the "Spaceman." I take ball one and ball two, then foul on off. Next pitch is a bit high but the umps call anything a strike that is in the local area code and a swing and miss. Ball three is low and inside. Then what separates the pros from us hackers is the next pitch which is a "12 to 6 hook" or curveball that blows me away. Geez, these guys are taking this game seriously. I hit once and play one inning in the field so that all the guys can get up to bat and into the field. The pros string together a few hits and beat us 3-0, but our left fielder John Pirone (the deaf kid) makes a "Sports Center" highlight film diving catch, gets hurt but stays in. He is okay and our pitcher, Motor Mouth Walt Nadeau, is stellar fanning Oil Can Boyd.
We get a few hits and get men on first and second but Bill Lee, telling us later he was never going to give up a run to us in that situation blows some serious heat (fastballs) by poor "Doc Dick" Todd Cohen that was totally unfair. "Spaceman" shrugs and laughs at the same time.
The banquet is great and during cocktails we get more autographs, enjoy recaps of the week, down plenty of good booze and take photos we've missed during the week. No one wants this to end, but it must.
Naturally, we sit with "The Can" and Skipper Treuel (who played a pretty good right field for the pros today) and Can's girl friend or one of them has come into town. She tries to keep him in line, but that is an impossible task as when Dennis Boyd is on a roll, ain't nobody gonna stop him. "Ya understand what I'm sayin?"
He tells us about the toughest hitter he ever faced, Bill Hall of the Yankees (go figure) and the easiest, Tony Gwynn and Rod Carew, two Hall of Famers (go figure again!). And, of course there were ruminations from The Can about pitching and how to throw various pitches, good and bad managers and his favorite catcher, Rich Gedman. All of this pontificating with a never empty glass of rum and coke in his right hand. We listened both confused and transfixed.
We got lineup cards from one of our games which we all signed and the Sox gave us each a group photo and team shot taken earlier in the week, a ball signed by all the coaches and a ball signed the by great Carl Yasztremski. Way cool and it's my third Yaz ball. Red
Sox trivia: only four Sox have played left field from 1939 to 1996 and I have autographs of all of them (Ted Williams, Yaz, Jim Rice and Mike "Gator" Greenwell).
Awards were passed out and our own John Pirone got most improved for the week. Go Big John! Gedman's team won the championship and all will get Fantasy Camp rings. Talk about a Major League experience! All the teams are invited back to Boston sometime this summer to play at Fenway Park when the Sox are not there and be introduced to a regular game crowd the day before the game the campers play. That is an extra $500 bucks and guys who have done it before say it is beyond awesome to play a game at Fenway.
A few more drinks, some goodbyes and autographs and it's over. We all huddle around our Skipper exchange cards and emails. I tell my team mates, Treuel and Oil Can that dinner is on me if they come out to LA. Can has a cousin in Burbank and if he comes out (he has a book coming out in 2010 by the way), I will let my local RSN (that's Red Sox Nation) cronies know so they can join me for non stop stories, cockeyed philosophy and torrents of four letter descriptors.
On the way out to the bar, I say goodbye to Bill Lee and ask him about that outside curve ball he threw to me on the 3-2 count. He said he's never walked anyone and never will.
That's baseball and a fitting ending to a magical week.
Final thoughts and ruminations in a day or so and now it's back to the real world.
It's been a gas.
#60
Thanks for writing this blog, Hal! I was a Red Sox Fantasy camper in 2008, and I have very fond memories of the event.
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