Plenty of ice, laughs at fantasy camp
01/17/2006
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Ahhh, nothing like the smell of Icy Hot and Flex All in the morning to clear out the cobwebs.
Seriously, though, none of us will have sinus problems this week, as the air is heavy with menthol from the pain-relieving creams. You could tell that the first day had an impact on some guys, who gingerly got onto the bus for the morning ride to the complex.
We were split into four teams with the managers -- Mark Grace, Matt Williams, Brett Butler and Mike Fetters -- holding a draft in the late afternoon. I was chosen by Grace, and though the draft order was not revealed to the campers, I found out where I went when Grace said to me, "You were my No. 1 pick, so don't mess up." Of course, it was Grace talking, so it was far more colorful than that.
Speaking of colorful, I've got to tell you about one of my teammates, Daiton Rutkowski. There are some people that you come across in life that are so unique you never forget them, and Rutkowski is one of them.
We had Kangaroo Court in the morning, where campers were fined small amounts of money for various transgressions. Grace served as the judge, complete with a wig, and Williams was his bailiff. The fines are generally in $2 increments, but with the number of fines Rutkowski is racking up, he may as well leave his credit card on file.
Non-stop funny one-liners come out of this guy, most of which I can't share in this forum. He was actually the mayor of Prescott, Ariz., for four years in the '90s, winning re-election with 71 percent of the vote. At 62 years of age, he's on his fourth wife -- they've been together 25 years now, I should add -- and he's a gamer. He caught all seven innings of our game against the Williams team, even snagging a couple of foul popups, albeit one that went into his glove after bouncing off his chin and then chest.
But the guy made the plays and Grace gave him the day's lineup card with his autograph as a reward for being our MVP. You should have seen his face when that happened, since Grace has always been a hero of sorts to him.
The boys from "D-Backs Playing Hardball" were on the scene today, and after the game, they interviewed Rutkowski. When they asked him his favorite part of fantasy camp, he said, "The camaraderie, of course, and seeing all the naked butts in the clubhouse."
Early on in our game today, our play was a little ragged. OK, honestly we couldn't have caught a cold. We quickly fell behind 11-3 and Grace thought it was a good time for a pep talk.
"Men, we are absolutely getting boat-raced out there," he said. "I'm going to have to listen to Matty yapping all year long if we don't start playing some better baseball."
I don't know if we played better baseball, but we did rally to tie the game at 14 -- I scored the tying run -- in the bottom of the seventh and final inning.
I wrote yesterday that there were several players that had downright inspiring stories. One of them is Don Kucharek. This guy plays competitive softball three to four times a week and works out a total of six days each week, so I'm here to tell you that you won't find anyone in this camp in better shape than he is.
Oh, I forgot to mention he's 71 years old. Someone said the other day that they hoped they were in as good a shape as he is when they get to be 71. I just hope that I can be in as good a shape as he is sometime soon, much less when I'm 71.
We have another camper here, Earl Hagen, who is 70. Now, Earl's up in our game today and Don is playing second base on my team. Earl hits a popup that the first baseman couldn't quite get his glove around. The ball starts to roll slowly towards second. Don runs at it, and I don't mean he runs for a 71-year-old, I mean he runs at it, scoops it up with his glove without missing a beat, and now we've got a footrace to the bag between two guys with a combined age of 141!
Earl was moving pretty good down the line and the two of them darn near collided at the bag, but Don got there just a hair before Earl did to record the out.
I went in the training room after the game for some treatment -- more on that later -- and if it was crowded on Monday, it was even more so on Tuesday. As I was being worked on, I looked around the room and realized that of all the people in there, neither Earl nor Don were present. Boy, that's humbling right there.
Speaking of my visit to the training room, this week is not only about baseball it's about science. That's because we're all discovering muscles that we never knew we had. For me, on Tuesday, it was the abductor muscle. It's kind of just below your hip and above your thigh, and you have a tendency to tweak it when you round third base and slip on the wet dirt there.
Anyway, I always get my arm iced after each day because, well, it hurts like all get out since I haven't done this much throwing in years, and also because I want to make sure I stay on top of it so it doesn't become a problem later in the week.
Between that and the ice for the abductor, I walked around looking like the Michelin Man, as you can tell from the photo. I call it "preventive icing" but my manager calls it being a wimp. I'll leave it for you to judge.
Source: http://arizona.diamondbacks.mlb.com/
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Ahhh, nothing like the smell of Icy Hot and Flex All in the morning to clear out the cobwebs.
Seriously, though, none of us will have sinus problems this week, as the air is heavy with menthol from the pain-relieving creams. You could tell that the first day had an impact on some guys, who gingerly got onto the bus for the morning ride to the complex.
We were split into four teams with the managers -- Mark Grace, Matt Williams, Brett Butler and Mike Fetters -- holding a draft in the late afternoon. I was chosen by Grace, and though the draft order was not revealed to the campers, I found out where I went when Grace said to me, "You were my No. 1 pick, so don't mess up." Of course, it was Grace talking, so it was far more colorful than that.
Speaking of colorful, I've got to tell you about one of my teammates, Daiton Rutkowski. There are some people that you come across in life that are so unique you never forget them, and Rutkowski is one of them.
We had Kangaroo Court in the morning, where campers were fined small amounts of money for various transgressions. Grace served as the judge, complete with a wig, and Williams was his bailiff. The fines are generally in $2 increments, but with the number of fines Rutkowski is racking up, he may as well leave his credit card on file.
Non-stop funny one-liners come out of this guy, most of which I can't share in this forum. He was actually the mayor of Prescott, Ariz., for four years in the '90s, winning re-election with 71 percent of the vote. At 62 years of age, he's on his fourth wife -- they've been together 25 years now, I should add -- and he's a gamer. He caught all seven innings of our game against the Williams team, even snagging a couple of foul popups, albeit one that went into his glove after bouncing off his chin and then chest.
But the guy made the plays and Grace gave him the day's lineup card with his autograph as a reward for being our MVP. You should have seen his face when that happened, since Grace has always been a hero of sorts to him.
The boys from "D-Backs Playing Hardball" were on the scene today, and after the game, they interviewed Rutkowski. When they asked him his favorite part of fantasy camp, he said, "The camaraderie, of course, and seeing all the naked butts in the clubhouse."
Early on in our game today, our play was a little ragged. OK, honestly we couldn't have caught a cold. We quickly fell behind 11-3 and Grace thought it was a good time for a pep talk.
"Men, we are absolutely getting boat-raced out there," he said. "I'm going to have to listen to Matty yapping all year long if we don't start playing some better baseball."
I don't know if we played better baseball, but we did rally to tie the game at 14 -- I scored the tying run -- in the bottom of the seventh and final inning.
I wrote yesterday that there were several players that had downright inspiring stories. One of them is Don Kucharek. This guy plays competitive softball three to four times a week and works out a total of six days each week, so I'm here to tell you that you won't find anyone in this camp in better shape than he is.
Oh, I forgot to mention he's 71 years old. Someone said the other day that they hoped they were in as good a shape as he is when they get to be 71. I just hope that I can be in as good a shape as he is sometime soon, much less when I'm 71.
We have another camper here, Earl Hagen, who is 70. Now, Earl's up in our game today and Don is playing second base on my team. Earl hits a popup that the first baseman couldn't quite get his glove around. The ball starts to roll slowly towards second. Don runs at it, and I don't mean he runs for a 71-year-old, I mean he runs at it, scoops it up with his glove without missing a beat, and now we've got a footrace to the bag between two guys with a combined age of 141!
Earl was moving pretty good down the line and the two of them darn near collided at the bag, but Don got there just a hair before Earl did to record the out.
I went in the training room after the game for some treatment -- more on that later -- and if it was crowded on Monday, it was even more so on Tuesday. As I was being worked on, I looked around the room and realized that of all the people in there, neither Earl nor Don were present. Boy, that's humbling right there.
Speaking of my visit to the training room, this week is not only about baseball it's about science. That's because we're all discovering muscles that we never knew we had. For me, on Tuesday, it was the abductor muscle. It's kind of just below your hip and above your thigh, and you have a tendency to tweak it when you round third base and slip on the wet dirt there.
Anyway, I always get my arm iced after each day because, well, it hurts like all get out since I haven't done this much throwing in years, and also because I want to make sure I stay on top of it so it doesn't become a problem later in the week.
Between that and the ice for the abductor, I walked around looking like the Michelin Man, as you can tell from the photo. I call it "preventive icing" but my manager calls it being a wimp. I'll leave it for you to judge.
Source: http://arizona.diamondbacks.mlb.com/
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