Living a baseball dream: Naperville man's dispatches from fantasy camp
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.
Tuesday, Jan. 27
MESA, AZ. - From the conversations I've had with repeat campers, the worst you will feel, provided you don't injure yourself during the week, will be Tuesday if you did not prepare yourself for the running, hitting and throwing.
There were a whole lot of very tired and aching pups today, and I was one of them. I suppose I'm fortunate my only issue was with my hip flexors and quadriceps. I had not done enough sprinting in the prior months. Lesson learned.
How bad was it this morning? Not bad enough to hit the trainer's room, and not bad enough to keep me off the field, but bad enough for me to schedule a half-hour massage that evening to see if I could buy my way out of my mistake. More about that later.
Today was the first time for the home uniform jersey. Now that jersey is primo - a genuine Cub home jersey with my last name across the back above the number 14. And, yes, they even spelled my name correctly.
I chose 14 because Ernie Banks was my favorite Cub growing up. I'm one of a number of 14s here.
At the morning meeting, it was announced massage therapists were available for $35 a half-hour and something like $60 an hour.
The main attraction, however, was "court" that was held to levy fines for offenses. Fines were assessed for bad baseball, bad umpiring, bad choices in umpires and even bad parenting. It was suggested one of the coaches be fined for being on his cell phone while coaching third base when his son, who is one of his players, ended up at the base. The coach handed the phone to his son (who was described as being gassed from running the bases) and said, "Here, talk to your mother."
Ten-dollar fine.
Next, batting practice: As good as I was Monday, I was that bad today. I beat the ball into the ground, into the top of the cage, hit one off the handle (that's painful), and just basically stunk.
Outfield practice was with Willie Wilson. He was with us in the outfield and Lee Smith was manning the ball-throwing machine on the left field line. We just took some fly balls. It seemed to me that Lee was messing with us because the fly balls kept falling shorter and shorter, making most of us struggle to come in on the ball.
The morning game was against the Kessinger/Beckert team. My bad round of batting practice carried over into this game, as I went 0 for 4. Once again, we were ahead late in the game and, once again, we lost.
This time, the other team earned it as opposed to us giving it to them. I played left field the whole game and made a couple plays but was pretty gassed by the end. My team record after this loss: 0 wins, 3 losses. At this point, some of us were wondering if any team had ever gone the whole week without winning a game. When the question was posed to Rick Reuschel, he answered, "Yes." Next logical question: "Who was the coach?" "I was," he said. Maybe he's kidding. Or not.
The afternoon game was against the Davis/Smith team. I got my first extra-base hit - a double that nearly made it to the warning track in left field on the fly. My last at-bat of the day was a sharp single up the middle in the last inning. I played the whole game in left field, and did OK early - made some plays. However, near the end my legs wouldn't respond as I would have liked, so I had a couple balls get by me that would not have done so in the morning. We lost by 3 runs, so at the end of Tuesday, we still were winless with 4 losses. Winning isn't everything here at fantasy camp, but it sure would be nice to win once this week.
Tonight I had the 30 minute, $35 massage on my legs. I felt better afterward, but not $35 better. She worked me over pretty good, which was pretty painful in spots where she was trying to loosen up the knots. She kept telling me to relax - kind of hard when you're experiencing Pain Level 6 on a 10-point scale in one of the largest muscles in the body.
So, the day ended for me eating dinner in the bar, watching one of our games on TV.
A WGN-TV big shot is also a camper - executive producer Bob Vorwald. I was told WGN is going to pull a program together about fantasy camp, so there is at least one guy hauling around an HD video camera with another guy with a boom microphone. In addition, each game is captured on a camcorder set up behind home plate, operated by someone who tends to make the camera follow the ball when it's hit. Those videos of the games are shown in the hotel bar that evening.
I've seen a couple of my games and have seen myself hit a few times. What an eye-opener that is to see myself in action, and I don't mean that in a good way.
At the beginning of the morning game, Rich Reuschel read the lineup. Again, he was unsure of how to pronounce my name, so first got it wrong and asked if that was right. I corrected him, and then said, "Rhymes with Geezer." He laughed and said he'd probably call me "Geezer" now. I thought he was kidding. After all, he and I are basically the same age, but, now, I'm Geezer, so I suppose that if I ever see him again after camp, I'll tell him I was "Geezer" and he'll remember me.
bull; Coming Tuesday: Road trip against the Giants campers
<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> </ul> </div> </div> </div>