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.