Fantasy Camp lesson learned ...
01/19/2006
TUCSON, Ariz. -- There are some lessons you learn in life that don't really cost you much -- maybe a couple of dollars or a few anxious moments. And then there are the lessons that cause physical pain.
We're going to talk about the latter today.
I tempted the Baseball Gods. And I paid the price.
I felt good when I woke up today, better than I have in a few days. And that's understandable, considering when I got back to the hotel on Wednesday at 5 p.m. I fell sound asleep until 8, when I woke up, wrote my diary and promptly went back to sleep.
My mistake was in talking about. I rode to the ballpark, talking about how good I felt. I got there and I told the trainer Greg Latta that I had turned the corner and didn't need any pregame treatment.
You don't tempt the Baseball Gods like that.
In the first inning of my first game of the day, I hit a chopper to the hole at short and sprinted hard down the line. Now, we've been told since the first workout to pace ourselves to not try to run harder than we can, but you lose sight of that when you're playing and, long story short, I pulled a muscle. Now, this is a family Web site, but there's no other way of saying it, I pulled my right groin, but good.
I gutted it out, though, finished that game, iced down during lunch (I'll spare you the details on that, but think Seinfeld) and played all seven innings of the afternoon game as well. Note I said that I played, not that I played well. In fact, I stunk. For two days, I didn't boot one ball hit to me during a game. In the first game on Thursday, I couldn't seem to make a play.
The coaches explained that it's hard to field a ground ball when you can't squat down, but by the same token, the opposing manager, Mike Fetters, named me the MVP of his team when all was said and done.
I did redeem myself somewhat in the second game, driving in an insurance run in the first win of camp for Grace's Aces. I also made a diving catch on a pop fly that just made things worse on my groin. But hey, it was an important out and it's not like I've got to save myself for anything. I've got a number of months until we do this again.
The next Fantasy Camp won't be until this fall.
I was glad that in the earlier game of the day, my teammate Robert Tallman picked up the MVP award. Robert, who is originally from Oklahoma and still has the accent, has been like Brooks Robinson at third base for us. I'm telling you, he's made darn near every play. Robert, who is slightly on the short side, was fined on the second day of camp for having a misleading last name.
Our left fielder, Rowdy Oxford, a.k.a. "The Ox," has also been a solid contributor. He looks more like a tight end on a football team, but he got a heck of a workout in left today and aside from his right arm noticeably longer than his left by the end of the day, didn't seem to worse for the wear.
The photos you've seen this camp come courtesy of another of my teammates, Danny Spitler. The Spitter is one of those interesting people you meet in life. He's a fascinating guy who owns a very successful manufacturing company in Phoenix. He and I had dinner the other night and he had some very good suggestions for how my wife Karen could go about finding a job as she was laid off last week. And while I'm on that subject if anyone out there has any openings, feel free to drop me an e-mail.
Back to Danny. He's spent the past several years traveling around the world whenever he can and has had a big impact in Cambodia, a place he and his wife Pam went last April. At one of the villages they visited, they were told that many of the villagers, particularly children, were getting sick because they did not have a source of clean water. So Danny said the Spitlers donated the $300 that was needed for the town to build a domestic water well. After they showed them pictures of the new well, some of their friends and family donated money for another three wells.
Amazingly, though, it didn't stop there as Danny said they next donated money to build a school that they thought would draw about 60 kids. Instead it was quickly overrun with students and they had to expand the project which now includes 191 students and six teachers that are paid $70 a month, a high salary there.
The Spitlers are headed back to Cambodia next month to visit the school for the first time and to break ground on their latest project, a library building. Danny said his father Irvin donated the $4,000 needed for the project. You should have seen the amazed look on Mark Grace's face when Danny told him the story at lunch yesterday.
A diary entry would not be complete without a Daiton Rutkowski story. I've written before about how great the coaches have been in the way they've interacted with the campers and how relaxed the setting is. The following story illustrates this:
We were out stretching for the afternoon game against Matt Williams' team and Williams was talking with several of our players. Rutkowski was still bitter about a strikeout he had in the first game of the day and was telling D-Backs coach Glenn Sherlock that he had thrown him a slider to strike him out, which Glenn most certainly hadn't.
"You sure did Sherlock," Rutkowski said. "And I embarrassed myself, looking like Matt Williams flailing at a slider."
"Excuse me?" Matt said.
"Sorry, Matt, you hit some homers, but c'mon I can't count how many times I was screaming at you through the television to lay off those sliders."
Only at Fantasy Camp can you say that to Matt Williams and get a smile instead of a scowl.
Source: http://arizona.diamondbacks.mlb.com/
TUCSON, Ariz. -- There are some lessons you learn in life that don't really cost you much -- maybe a couple of dollars or a few anxious moments. And then there are the lessons that cause physical pain.
We're going to talk about the latter today.
I tempted the Baseball Gods. And I paid the price.
I felt good when I woke up today, better than I have in a few days. And that's understandable, considering when I got back to the hotel on Wednesday at 5 p.m. I fell sound asleep until 8, when I woke up, wrote my diary and promptly went back to sleep.
My mistake was in talking about. I rode to the ballpark, talking about how good I felt. I got there and I told the trainer Greg Latta that I had turned the corner and didn't need any pregame treatment.
You don't tempt the Baseball Gods like that.
In the first inning of my first game of the day, I hit a chopper to the hole at short and sprinted hard down the line. Now, we've been told since the first workout to pace ourselves to not try to run harder than we can, but you lose sight of that when you're playing and, long story short, I pulled a muscle. Now, this is a family Web site, but there's no other way of saying it, I pulled my right groin, but good.
I gutted it out, though, finished that game, iced down during lunch (I'll spare you the details on that, but think Seinfeld) and played all seven innings of the afternoon game as well. Note I said that I played, not that I played well. In fact, I stunk. For two days, I didn't boot one ball hit to me during a game. In the first game on Thursday, I couldn't seem to make a play.
The coaches explained that it's hard to field a ground ball when you can't squat down, but by the same token, the opposing manager, Mike Fetters, named me the MVP of his team when all was said and done.
I did redeem myself somewhat in the second game, driving in an insurance run in the first win of camp for Grace's Aces. I also made a diving catch on a pop fly that just made things worse on my groin. But hey, it was an important out and it's not like I've got to save myself for anything. I've got a number of months until we do this again.
The next Fantasy Camp won't be until this fall.
I was glad that in the earlier game of the day, my teammate Robert Tallman picked up the MVP award. Robert, who is originally from Oklahoma and still has the accent, has been like Brooks Robinson at third base for us. I'm telling you, he's made darn near every play. Robert, who is slightly on the short side, was fined on the second day of camp for having a misleading last name.
Our left fielder, Rowdy Oxford, a.k.a. "The Ox," has also been a solid contributor. He looks more like a tight end on a football team, but he got a heck of a workout in left today and aside from his right arm noticeably longer than his left by the end of the day, didn't seem to worse for the wear.
The photos you've seen this camp come courtesy of another of my teammates, Danny Spitler. The Spitter is one of those interesting people you meet in life. He's a fascinating guy who owns a very successful manufacturing company in Phoenix. He and I had dinner the other night and he had some very good suggestions for how my wife Karen could go about finding a job as she was laid off last week. And while I'm on that subject if anyone out there has any openings, feel free to drop me an e-mail.
Back to Danny. He's spent the past several years traveling around the world whenever he can and has had a big impact in Cambodia, a place he and his wife Pam went last April. At one of the villages they visited, they were told that many of the villagers, particularly children, were getting sick because they did not have a source of clean water. So Danny said the Spitlers donated the $300 that was needed for the town to build a domestic water well. After they showed them pictures of the new well, some of their friends and family donated money for another three wells.
Amazingly, though, it didn't stop there as Danny said they next donated money to build a school that they thought would draw about 60 kids. Instead it was quickly overrun with students and they had to expand the project which now includes 191 students and six teachers that are paid $70 a month, a high salary there.
The Spitlers are headed back to Cambodia next month to visit the school for the first time and to break ground on their latest project, a library building. Danny said his father Irvin donated the $4,000 needed for the project. You should have seen the amazed look on Mark Grace's face when Danny told him the story at lunch yesterday.
A diary entry would not be complete without a Daiton Rutkowski story. I've written before about how great the coaches have been in the way they've interacted with the campers and how relaxed the setting is. The following story illustrates this:
We were out stretching for the afternoon game against Matt Williams' team and Williams was talking with several of our players. Rutkowski was still bitter about a strikeout he had in the first game of the day and was telling D-Backs coach Glenn Sherlock that he had thrown him a slider to strike him out, which Glenn most certainly hadn't.
"You sure did Sherlock," Rutkowski said. "And I embarrassed myself, looking like Matt Williams flailing at a slider."
"Excuse me?" Matt said.
"Sorry, Matt, you hit some homers, but c'mon I can't count how many times I was screaming at you through the television to lay off those sliders."
Only at Fantasy Camp can you say that to Matt Williams and get a smile instead of a scowl.
Source: http://arizona.diamondbacks.mlb.com/
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home