Rockies Fantasy Camp Wrap-Up

Obviously, I spent the rest of the camp doing a lot of spectating. Yeah, it sucked that I couldn't play, but it didn't suck that I was still there, and getting to hang out with some pretty class act MLB ex-players, coaches, and a manager. And some great campers, too. More on a couple of those later in this post.

Our team played well—in fact, out of a total of four teams, ours scored the most runs—and finished with a 3-3 record. We missed playing in the Championship Game by "that much" but took solace in the fact that we beat a team in the consolation game that had beaten us twice in as many tries.

The Championship Game was a lot of fun to watch. It took place in the main field at Hi Corbett field, under the lights, with music in-between innings, an announcer, and a working scoreboard. For us spectators, there was a cooler of Coors Light nearby from which we could grab some refreshments. Ahhhh. Delicious refreshments.

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Did I mention that I spent time in the ER? Yes, I did. Did I mention that the very next day, another player from my team had to do the same? No, I did not. Jim broke his finger when the bat of the batter was let go of, only to come crashing into his fingers while he was holding his own bat in the on-deck circle. Yowsa. That's fracture number two, in as many days.

The irony here is that only two players on our team were wearing the same number (24, if you must know) and that would be Jim and me. Holy Crap! How weird is that???

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The Camp Banquet was Friday night, and was quite long, and presumably more enjoyable for those attendees who could eat. The number of attendees who could not eat numbered one. The number of attendees who could eat, and were named "Kyle" numbered zero.

But good-natured ignominy did not escape me. I was presented the Rainbow Award which, as it states on my plaque, is awarded to the MOST BLACK and BLUE OF THE CAMP. Thanks. I worked hard for that one. And as I made my way to the front of the room to accept said award, there on the big screen for all to see played the video of my pop-fly-catching misfortune. Yeah, I look forward to watching that again. Not. Well, maybe kinda, but mostly not.

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After the banquet a lot of people milled around the foyer outside the banquet room talking about how much fun we had and how much we'll miss each other and how we should keep in touch. Eventually most of the crowd had made its way downstairs to the bar for more revelry. My group, however, instigated by Aaron's wife, decided drinking games were in order. Not exactly what I had in mind, but what the hell?

One of the advantages to having a suite in which you are staying is that when there is a group of people in the "living room" of the suite, and you decide to go to bed, you just shut the door to the "bedroom" and crawl under the covers. That's just what I did when 2:00am approached. Not sure what time it was when the rest of them stopped making their way through rounds of Kings Cup, but I think there was a 5 in it.

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Now, as for those aforementioned special two great campers:

When one sets off to spend the large pare of five days with fifty other individuals, from that can come a certain amount of anxiety. Like, are we gonna jive, are they gonna cotton to me, is it going to be all full of pretense, just how uncomfortable—and for how long—will it be? Stuff like that. Well, to that end, I could not have been luckier. I met a boatload of dudes that are top notch human beings. I’d be lying if I said that a small amount of folks weren’t a little cocky for my tastes, but that was really rare.

But with two guys, specifically, I could not have been more fortunate to spend the week. Aaron and Renick. The former I actually first met back in December when The Campers were invited to Coors Field for a primer on what to expect, take some swings in the batting cages, get fitted for jerseys, etc. He seemed really cool then, but we didn’t exchange phone numbers or even keep in touch. It was simply a small, early indicator that there would be at least one guy at The Camp with whom I jived.

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The flight down was a full one. If it had two empty seats, I’d be surprised. But it did have one. I know, because it was in between Aaron and I. Good start, I thought. Not only was I nervous about who I’d be rooming with, I was similarly anxious about who I’d be sitting next to on the plane. (Note to self: stop giving your wife so much shit for worrying too much.) So he and I were able to pick up where we left off (from when we chatted each other up in December at Coors Field). It was comfortable. Relaxing. Stressless.

Then, as it turns out, Aaron and I end up on the same team. Boom. That’s it. It’s all good, now, I remember thinking. Or, as my daughter says, quietly, when something good happens: “Yes.”

Aaron’s a genuine and laid back guy with a solid head on his shoulders and what seems like more integrity than a Dalai Lama reunion. And he can play him some ball. But for as good as a ballplayer he was, he was an even better teammate. He never put anyone down. Never showed an ounce of frustration.You could tell he was just living his dream, along with everyone else. At the same time, he did everything he could to perform at his best. It sounds like a cliché or hyperbole when you read about shit like that in the paper or hear it on the TV, like when managers say so-and-so sets an example for his teammates with his actions, but this dude really is a stand up guy.

The other guy who made the week a few ticks better than I anticipated (and don’t get me wrong—I expected this to be fun as hell) was Renick. That’s his first name. Betcha never heard that one before. Anyway, among the information contained in the packet The Rockies gave us at DIA prior to take-off was who our roommate was going to be, so I knew the name of the guy I was rooming with, but didn’t who he was until halfway through Day One, long after we hit the tarmac in Tucson, and were on the fields doing some drills.

When the team line-ups were announced, Renick and I realized we'd be on the same team. Bonus! Roommate. Same team. That's all it took. He and I clicked like beans and cornbread. Our friendship was immediately comfortable, like we'd known each other for some time already. In contrast, there were guys on my team who I broke camp with not feeling like I "got" them in the least, or they me.

Renick's loaded with a great sense of humor, and a genuine desire to see people around him do well. And not for selfish reasons, because it might make him look better, but because he genuinely wants to see people succeed.

When I showed up back at the hotel the night after the Teeth Wreck, and wandered to the bar where I knew Aaron and Rencik were, he had a cold Sierra Nevada—complete with a straw—waiting for me. And whilst I was in the ER having the time of my life, he was enjoying himself at a Texas Hold 'Em Tournament put on for The Campers back at the hotel, and he'd still send me a text from time to time to check in on my condition. Dude's solid.

And so was Camp. I hope to have the opportunity to redeem myself next year, and will do everything in my power to do so.

Observations and cognitive disassociations.

I finally slept more than three hours, the majority of which did not involve swallowing blood all night, so I've got that going for me.

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This is something I thought of this morning: You know how people sometimes say shit like, "Man, if I was backstage at a Stones concert, I bet I could have my teeth bashed in and still have fun"? I proved that right this week. 'Cuz I did have my teeth bashed in, at Colorado Rockies Fantasy Camp, and I still had fun. Don't get me wrong, if I ever have the opportunity to redeem myself at The Camp ever again, I sure as hell hope the same thing doesn't happen. I just made the most of a crappy thing.

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We had two people at camp who won the opportunity to be here. One from mlb.com, the other from KOA. Those two folks could not be more different.

Angie, who won the KOA contest didn't even let me in on that little factoid until yesterday (day three of the camp). She's humble and quiet, yet competitive and a great teammate.

The other one I briefly referred to in a previous post. Avalanche Blackwell was his professional wrestling name. The Avalanche Splash was his signature move. Or so he says. The dude is a true character. He made sure I knew he was here because he won the opportunity on mlb.com. He told me that in December when I met him at a pre-camp meeting at Coors Field. And he told me that again on Day One. He speaks at the same volume whether he's outside in the dugout at a game, or in the bus on the way to the hotel. He tells you things that you didn't ask about. Out of the blue. In relation to nothing at all. Seemingly just to break the silence. I gotta tell ya, sometimes I like silence. I don't get the impression Avalanche does. I mentioned in my last post that Jim Tracy handed me a signed jersey of his, and Avalanche says to me, hours later, totally out of context, out of the blue, "I know somewhere you can get that jersey framed. There's a place by my house in Louisville." Yeah, Avalanche, that's cool. There's a bunch of places by my house where I can have it framed, too. "Where do you live?" Just off of Colfax in east/central Denver. His eyes widen frighteningly. What's wrong, Avalanche? "That's a damn scary neighborhood!" No it's not, Avalanche. "It is in my book!" He sounds like he smokes a couple packs a day (which I'm pretty sure he does—Parliaments); he uses what I like to refer as hillbilly English—you know the kind I'm talking about; and he lacks some common social niceties. He's not quite a jerk, but he's definitely not the kind of guy you'd want your little sister to marry. But holy cow, his presence at Camp has certainly made it a bit more memorable than it otherwise would have been, no doubt about that.

Jim Tracy and the dentist

The day opened on the heels of yet another mostly-sleepless night. It opened with a breakfast that consisted of coffee. It opened with a desire to eat some food. But, the possibility of that happening ranks right up there with the possibility of me playing in any games today at Fantasy Camp. See, the crappy thing that came from yesterday's Teeth Wreck is the fact that my bite no longer comes together in a way that allows for mastication.

Fast forward to Hi Corbett at today's opening daily group gathering. They refer to it as Kangaroo Court, but I have no idea why. But that's not the point. The camp Commissioner (that's Jim Tracy) hands out various fines, like if someone leaves clothing behind in a dugout the day before. Or if someone's cell phone goes off during a game. Things like that. It's always done in fun. But he also takes time to recognize the peeps who did something extraordinary or tremendous.

So after explaining that he had an extra one of his signed jerseys hanging around, because he won the Texas Hold-em tourney from the night before, and the winner was slated to receive said jersey, he called me up. It became mine as compensation for the six-and-a-half hours I spent in the ER with Keith Dugger. So that's not a shitty start to a day, to be handed a jersey autographed by the manager of the Colorado Rockies.

Next thing is even better, at least in terms of how I was feeling about my Teeth Wreck. Turns out one of the Campers was a dentist. He gave me a good look-over and said I was not likely to lose any teeth. And that an oral surgeon would be able to put everything back together, and in its right place. So that was a huge relief. But he also mentioned that I shouldn't partake in any playing of baseball. Bummer. But, hey, I'm still at The Camp.

And so I am. Still at The Camp, indeed. But I'm also exhausted, and finally feel like I'm going to get me some sleep tonight. So good night. Me and my teeth are going to sleep.

My hamstring is fine, but…

My hamstring is fine, but that's because I iced it really good, twice—once after I tweaked it, once the next morning—and throttled back my running by about 10% in the first of two games today—day two—of the Rockies Fantasy camp.

My hamstring is fine because I was able to take my mind off of it in the second game. Playing right field, I misjudged a fly ball. Everybody does it at one time or another, especially when you're just learning to play the outfield. (Note to my next-lifetime-self: learn to play outfield long before you're 45.) It's tough to judge just where that thing's gonna come down when you're standing 200 feet from where it was set on its trajectory. Scores of men and women I've played softball with over the years have had balls come down next to them, five feet behind them, or simply bounce off their glove. I, however, was much closer in my misjudgment. The exact distance by which it missed my glove was negligible. The exact distance by which it missed my mouth was not negligible.

My hamstring is fine because the feeling of a baseball landing on your mouth from out of the heavens is the kind of feeling that forces you to feel little else.

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For those of you who remember the Rockies game known simply as "The Play-In Game" back in 2007 when they completed their magical run to the playoffs, and eventually the World Series, you will no doubt remember the game-winning slide into home plate by Matt Holiday where his head violently banged the ground as he slid. The guy from the Rockies dugout, the Rockies head trainer, who was quick to Holiday's side with whatever tools of his trade he used to assess the damage is a guy named Keith Dugger.

Even though the first person I remember seeing after I finally reopened my eyes was our second baseman Susie Wargin, from Denver's 9News, Keith Dugger is the man with whom I spent the next six-and-a-half hours. He got me off the field, into the locker room, to the ER, and back to the hotel. I am very thankful for having him to BS with. To be reassured by. To be made to not feel stupid for catching a routine pop fly with my mouth by. The Rockies are lucky to have such a great guy in that position.

As for my mouth, well, I'm gonna live. It doesn't look like I'm going to lose any teeth. Two or three of my front teeth have been reassigned a new angle from which they jut out of my gums, and I have a small fracture in the bone between my mouth and nose. My lip is swollen and hamburgery.

As for the rest of the Camp, I'm gonna do my damnedest to continue to enjoy the hell out of it, but it won't involve me being too involved in any games. Head trainer's and doctor's orders. But I still might be able to play soft catch and swing the bat in the cage, possibly even as a pinch hitter. I can still root for my team and enjoy the building camaraderie. I'm not going down. I'm not giving up. But I am going to be swallowing some blood for a few more days.

The first day of the Colorado Rockies Fantasy Camp is under my belt.

Today was Day One of the Colorado Rockies Fantasy camp. It's been a really long day (up at 4:30, writing this at midnight) so I am not going to go into a lot of detail right now, but here are some highlights and tidbits:

• I am going to get a lot of shwag. In addition to the two Rockies jerseys I'll be taking home, so far I've also racked up two pairs of sunglasses, my hat, a short sleeve Rocks shirt, two long sleeve ones, a lightweight Rocks coat, a Rocks skull cap, a Fantasy Camp hat, a pair of underwear, wristbands, and I'm sure I'm forgetting several other things. And, impressively, the veterans I've talked to (of which there are several here), say we will get something new everyday.

• Larry Walker and Dante Bichette are still sculpted and fit.

• It's hard (for me, anyway) to hit a baseball with a bat. And it's really hard to hit it out of the INFIELD!

• We have one real character at camp. He's a former 400 lb professional wrestler who went by the name of Avalanche Blackwell and he says that "while wrestling might have been fake, the pain was real". He swears he can scale the outfield wall of Hi Corbet field by himself—it's got to be at least 20 feet high. He aspires to get his commercial divers license, and is currently enrolled in a culinary college to get his chef's degree. He's a unique character, but he is adding some serious seasoning to the camp. I like being in the guy's presence.

• My roommate's a young kid who puts up the strikes, balls, and hits on the scoreboard at Coors Field during home games. Are you kidding me? That's his job. How cool is that?

• We played one game today in which I went 0-3 with a strikeout. Bummer. But I played a decent second base.

Much more to come tomorrow....

The furthering of my infatuation with baseball.

I didn't want to come right out and say it (see: My previous post), but my parents decided to wait until I turned 45 to truly spoil me, and I couldn't be happier. They're sending me to Tucson, AZ, to partake in the Colorado Rockies Fantasy Camp. I leave Tuesday. This Tuesday. Less than 72 hours from now.

I'm honored. I'm anxious. I'm curious. I'm scared. I'm nervous. I'm cloud-walking. I'm just going haywire. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for which I am grateful.

So, to that end, I have done my best to balance being a father, being a husband, running a business, and doing all of the things that those things entail with getting myself in better shape for this Gig. I don't want to let my parents down. I don't want to let myself down. I don't want to let my fellow Campers down. I don't want to look back on this and feel like I didn't give the best that I had to give. Because This Type of Thing doesn't come around EVER.

For example, I've been jumping rope to increase my agility. I was doing pull-ups, push-ups, and sit-ups for strength. I've been playing catch with myself against the wall of a vacant nearby middle-school. In fact, I came up with a great game I play with myself there. I found a tree located about 30 feet between where I place myself and the school. So you have me, tree, and big wall-of-building. I throw a rubber ball at the tree, and stand back in anticipation of where it's gonna go. Since I never know (assuming I don't miss the damn thing altogether – although that doesn't suck, due to said proximity of me to the building behind the tree) which way the ball is going to carom, it's like fielding a ball hit off of a bat. OK. It's probably nothing like fielding a ball hit off of a bat. But in my little brain it is. In my anticipatory little brain it's just like fielding a ball hit off of a bat. Yeah. I'm in for a big surprise, I'm sure of that.

This tree and I had a very nice relationship. Sure, she fought me at first. But I talked her into making sure that most of the balls I threw at her caromed to my right to mimic what I imagine to be a right-handed-heavy batting order in this Gig. I suppose if I end up playing third base or left field I'll be sorry, but I was playing my bets.

Anyway, keep your eyes posted to this page for I plan on filling it with a nightly update of what's gone down. Stay tuned.

Sports and me. A brief history.

When I was a kid I was a voracious sports fan. All sports. Yup. Football, basketball, and baseball. That was pretty much all sports as far as I was concerned. On the fringe I was aware there was hockey and wrestling, but that was about it. Where (or maybe when) I grew up, there was no soccer. No lacrosse. No volleyball. Nothing else of any interest whatsoever sports-wise. Oh, you had golf and tennis, but the individual sports didn't move me much. I played them, but I didn't follow them.

And so I was also a trivia buff when it came "all" sports, but most adroitly where football was concerned. When my dad and his friends would have a disagreement over who the starting quarterbacks were in Super Bowl III, for instance, it was me they would consult. There was a time in the early seventies that I could name, among other things, each NFL team's coach, starting quarterback, and back-up quarterback.

By the time I was in my late teens, however, I was not so keen on sports. There were other things I was more interested in and it just seemed like "sports" had played themselves out on me. So I pretty much stopped paying too much attention to them. I did have my dalliances with the Broncos and then college football—specifically the CU Buffs. In fact, at one point over the course of ten or so years, among the twenty or so people I enjoyed these games with, I had the longest string of CU home games not missed. Yeah, it was a big deal back then, but not so much nowadays.

And then sometime circa 1999 my wife and I watched the Ken Burns' documentary Baseball. It was magical. It was beautiful. It changed me. In the same way that the Beatles or Miles Davis changed music. Or J.D. Salinger changed literature. Or meeting my future wife changed me. The kids these days might say it rocked my world. Actually, kids these days probably don't say things like that anymore, but you get my gist.

Ever since I saw Baseball, It's just been brewing in me—aging like a good beer. It became clear to me that there was no reason not to start following sports again. But this time I defined "sports" as baseball. Just baseball. I became monogamous to one sport.

So it is now that I, even during this off-season, am a rabid taker-in of all things baseball. Trades. Rumors. Rumors of trades. Rumors of rumors. Who's playing in the Mexican winter leagues. Which teams are vying for the Dominican (or Liga de Beisbol Dominicano) Championship. (That would be Toros del Este and Gigantes del Cibao.) There is simply no reason to temporarily stop following baseball once the World Series ends.

To paraphrase the late sports writer Red Smith, I am of the opinion that baseball is only boring to boring people. Baseball is a game of finesse, of strategy, of repetition. 162 games make a season. No other sport even comes close to playing that many games in a season. Basketball and hockey both play 82. That's half. If my calculations are correct, the Colorado Rockies will have 19 days off in 2011 from opening day to the last game of the regular season. And that includes three-in-a-row over the All-Star break. You try and work six months in a row with 16 days off plus a three-day vacation. And that's if you did NOT excel at what you do. If you make it to the All-Star Game, you don't get that three-day vacation. Oh, and if your team is lucky enough to make it all the way to the World Series, your off-season, or extended vacation, just got shortened by a month. And not only that, but I didn't even count the about 45 days of Spring Training. If you win the World Series, you've been playing baseball for over eight months straight.

And they've been playing baseball in pretty much the same way, with very few changes (although don't EVEN get me started on the travesty of the designated hitter rule), for over 150 years. The pitcher has always thrown the ball to the batter—or striker, as he was known—from 60' 6". The bases have always been 90' apart. There have always been three outs to a half-inning. Three strikes make an out; four balls make a walk. Always. Ty Cobb. Honus Wagner. Babe Ruth. Willie Mays. Hank Aaron. Barry Bonds. Troy Tulowitzki. They all played by the same rules on the field, with only minute variations over the years.

I could go on. And I probably will. Just not now. I'm basically just setting up what will follow, in terms of my love of baseball. Stay tuned.

In which I link to a review of the new Cake album... and there's a grilled cheese reference.

I haven't been much of a Cake fan in the '00s, but they certainly did have their day in my music collection. And while the review I'm going to refer to in a second does not make me want to run out and pick up this new album, it did make about as funny and clever an analogy I've seen in some time. 


allmusic reviewer Mark Deming says:

…2011's Showroom Of Compassion, still finds John McCrea writing like he's tossing off random thoughts as he struggles not to be overwhelmed by the voices in his head, and singing as if he's waiting for that grilled cheese sandwich he ordered to finally show up.

From now on, I shall strive to enter blog posts as though I'm still waiting for my grilled cheese sandwich to show up. 

Let's get on with it.

Curious where I'll go with this, but my thought right now is that it's just for me. A sort of diary I guess. I'll probably go on about baseball and music, but may just track the everyday goings on in my life. You know, for posterity.