Naperville Geezer inspires with Cubs camp chronicles

John Fieser. Rhymes with "geezer."

That's what "Feez," as many of us call him, said to Rick Reuschel last week, so the former Cubs pitching legend would pronounce Fieser's name correctly.

Feez is 59 years old, and has captained our softball team in the Naperville Park District adult league for 35 years, save for a few years off during the, uh, transition from the highly competitive adult softball league to the highly competitive Masters League. That's a nice park district euphemism for "Old Guys League" - 40 and older, to be precise. Our first year in the league, we called ourselves, "Fieser's Geezers."

In those down years, though, Feez always kept his hand in the game, playing in leagues in such far-off places as Plano. Even to this day, as he captains the Geezers, he also plays in the competitive league, where he holds his own with the young guys.

For his birthday, his daughter Jessica got the consummate present for a guy like Feez: a week at the renowned Randy Hundley Baseball Camp in Arizona. There, the 92 participants in this winter's camp were put on eight teams that were coached mostly by Cubs players from the '70s and '80s. Guys like Reuschel, Jose Cardenal, Keith Moreland, Jody Davis, Leon Durham and Bob Dernier. Feez played on the Reuschel/Cardenal team. They start with intersquad games, building up to the big finale on their last day - playing a nine-inning game against the former Cubs at HoHoKam Park, same place where the current Cubs play their home spring training games.

Feez worked with computers long before the Internet was invented. He's also a meticulous, detail-oriented guy. Since the softball team formed in 1975, he's kept all kinds of team and individual stats for the Geezers, even stuff like on-base percentage, slugging percentage, run production, playing time percentage. So it was no surprise that in addition to his baseball glove, he also took his laptop to Cubs camp, and started sending daily dispatches to family and friends back here in the bone-chilling cold.

In one of his first e mails, he described the abilities of his teammates. Being a meticulous, detail-oriented guy, he did a short diagram reminding us of the attributes of a "five-tool player" - someone who 1) hits for average; 2) hits with power; 3) shows baserunning skills and speed; 4) throws well; 5) fields well. Unfortunately, Feez's team had three players who might be considered "no-tools players." In fact, he said, "If I wanted to be cruel, I would say that two of the 'no tool players' could actually be considered 'negative tool players' since they appear to have little knowledge of how to play the game in addition to having absolutely no skills to play it."

At this point, I started laughing out loud. And since I was guffawing and goofing off on company time, I figured I'd better come up with a good reason to be doing so. Ah hah! Shouldn't I share Feez's saga with you, gentle reader?

I broached the idea with him, and Feez responded in spades. Immediately upon his return to Naperville, he finished up his day-by-day report - all 8,702 words of it. (I told you he was meticulous and detail-oriented.)

But I was reminded of the immortal words of one of our top copy editors, Deb Finken: "Everyone needs a good editor." So the game plan is for me to edit down Feez's treatise into something we can fit on the pages of our Neighbor section next week. Yes, some of it will be kinda "inside baseball," but Feez imparts some funny moments, a few nice lessons about having fun, no matter your age; teamwork and camaraderie.

Furthermore, let's face it: You can't beat fun at the ol' ballpark, especially in the dead of winter.

jdavis@dailyherald.com