Living the baseball dream: Playing the Giants

Editor's note: On the cusp of his 60th birthday, John Fieser's daughter arranged for him to attend former Chicago Cubs catcher Randy Hundley's fantasy baseball camp. Fieser, of Naperville, has played with and captained competitive softball teams since the mid-'70s and is a long-suffering Cubs fan.

The weeklong camp in Mesa, Ariz., includes twice-daily intersquad games, building up to a game at the Cubs' Hohokam Park pitting the campers against former Cubs players who serve as coaches.

Fieser took his laptop to camp, too, and e-mailed reports to family and friends back home. We're printing edited versions of his dispatches, which will run through Friday.

Day 3 - Wednesday, Jan. 28

Road Game Day - We're off to play the Giants.

The field our game was played on had the same odd dimensions as the Giants' AT&T Park in San Francisco. This may be what all teams do for their minor league clubs or spring training facilities; the four Fitch Park fields are all very close to Wrigley Field dimensions.

This game was different from all the others we had played because there were no pitching machines. Each team had to supply pitchers. There was no stealing, but lead-offs were allowed up to a line drawn about 10 feet from each base, and any runner leading off the base was in jeopardy of being thrown out, so it was about as close to the real thing as could be reasonably done. Unfortunately, we weren't able to hit their pitcher. I struck out 3 times and have no idea how I managed to not hit the ball. Talk on the bench was that he was throwing too slowly - much slower than the machine pitching we were used to. I'd think that, having played softball for so many years, I could adjust to slower, but I didn't. Our pitchers did surprisingly well considering they hadn't pitched in camp other than in "side sessions" on Monday. I had a very easy morning. Because I whiffed all 3 times, I never had to run the bases, and because the Giants hit the ball into left field 3 times, I only had to run hard 3 times. Gotta look at the bright side.

After a couple of third strikes called on my teammates, Rick Reuschel yelled out from the coach's box, "Anyone who takes a third strike will be fined." There was just one after that, and it was noted. Also, our catcher went to his position without a mask on. The first pitch was thrown before anyone noticed this. The pitcher, who you might think would notice this, and who happens to be the catcher's brother, said in his own defense, "He looked like he had a mask on to me."

In Scottsdale, the Giants campers hit, we didn't, and that's why we lost. In fact, the Giants campers won 7 of 8 games and we're now winless in 5 tries. This is beginning to bother me. Only the Moreland/Coomer team won in Scottsdale, and believe me, we all heard about that every day the rest of the camp. But it's not about winning -

Once we got back to Fitch Park, I had lunch and looked over the pictures on the walls. So far, I have a few candidates for my baseball card, and there are a few other pictures that are pretty good action shots of me catching or hitting. I haven't decided how to handle this yet but will have to by the end of camp. They suggest that we look at the pictures daily and write down the numbers because there are so many pictures posted on the walls. That is good advice.

We played the Wilson/Hundley team this afternoon in an abbreviated 5-inning game. With the score tied 0-0 going into the top of the 5th inning, we got a couple hits, they made a throwing error and we had our first lead of the game. Then, we got a couple more hits and we ended up scoring 5 runs. The other team didn't score in the bottom of the 5th, and we had finally won a game. I went 2-for-2, both singles, with an RBI, so was 2-for-5 for the day - Hall of Fame numbers.

Some of us were so pumped that we took some batting practice after the big win. I managed to foul a ball off my foot. You don't ever want to do that.

• Coming Wednesday: Ron Santo arrives!

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=272675">Day 1: 'I will die a happy man' <span class="date">[2/15/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=271888">Day 2: Living a baseball dream<span class="date">[2/16/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>