Chilly in Ft. Myers

Greetings from Ft. Myers again, where the weather is a cool, crisp 52 degrees, which wouldn't be too bad if I had been wearing any appropriate clothes at the BBQ we just attended. Supposed to be even colder tomorrow.

In any case, today was not a good day for the Jackals, falling 1-0 in the first game to a team with a pitcher who was pretty phenomenal. I continued my lousy streak of hitting by going 0-for-3, including striking out looking with a runner on third to end the first inning (the last of three straight victims after putting runners on first and third with no outs), fouling out to first and grounding out the catcher to end the game. In the second game, we lost by a count of Many to Less. Possibly, the score was 10-4, but we really lost count after the third inning after falling behind so quickly. I finally batted lefty (I couldn't have done worse than righty) and went 1-for-2 with a solid ground ball single to hole between first and second, but not before straining what might be the oblique muscle in my side by lunging for a pitch too far outside and only getting a piece of it. That was painful. So, I finished the day once again 1-for-5. I am nothing if not consistent. Defensively, I made a couple of routine plays at second base and right field, but nothing spectacular. As a team, we have virtually no shot of the championship, but in a way that's not too bad because now we can relax and have fun without worrying about whether a bad at-bat or an error will cost our teammates a shot at a trophy.

Enough of the boring details, I want to focus a little more on the atmosphere of the camp. There are 120 guys in camp, ranging from 30 to mid-70s. Some are hardcore adult league baseball players; others are more like me and Adam, fans of the game who want to have a little fun playing a little boys game in a major league environment. Some campers have returned to Red Sox Fantasy Camp year after year, which is pretty incredible.

The coaches are all for the most part very friendly and approachable and very willing to accept drinks at the hotel bar and regale us with stories of glory days. They're regular guys who love the game and talk about baseball the way fans do. Lou Merloni was by no means a great player, but he made it to the big leagues for a few years and was a big fan favorite in Boston because he was from nearby Framingham, and he couldn't be more of a "regular guy." He rode in one of the cargo vans that shuttle players from the hotel to the training complex this morning and commandeered a detour to Dunkin' Donuts and went in and helped a camper make a run for coffee (granted, Lou held one coffee and the camper held six, but still, he slummed it with the rest of us in the van instead of in his own car). Butch Hobson is another guy who's not afraid to make eye contact with us and say hello and ask how we're doing. Just today, UL Washington encountered Adam in the locker room and asked him if he felt better than UL looked. UL was buck naked at the time. Spaceman is a strange cat, who signed my bat "Bill Lee, 2009, Earth" and tried to convince us that if Marilyn Monroe had married Henry Miller instead of Arthur Miller, she'd still be alive today. And, Oil Can, oh Oil Can; he can talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. And you won't be able to walk away in less than an hour; he won't let you.

Other little details that I've previously left out include the action at the morning meetings we have before the games begin for the day. They are led by Ken Sanders, an older ex-player whose sole purpose seems to be to authorize all the fines for the Kangaroo Court, which is a haphazard misdemeanor court of law with random infractions such as leaving your back pocket untucked after taking out your batting gloves, agressively adjusting your jockstrap, and showing up late to meetings or games, along with many other ridiculous crimes meant to get a laugh out of us. Fines range from one to five dollars. Speaking of laughs, Dick Berardino is the resident jokemaster and his job seems to be to tell one bad joke at the end of the meeting to send us on our way to the morning stretch. Today, the managers of each team gave a brief summary of their team's performance from the day before, which was pretty cool. Ron Johnson (or RJ) singled out Adam as the team's Defensive Player of the Day for his work at the hot corner, which was pretty cool of him to do in front of all the coaches and players/campers.

During the games, RJ and UL are pretty relaxed, especially RJ. He's always got a smile on his face and is ready for a high-five at any time, though you do have to keep an eye out for his loosely-packed wad of chewing tobacco, which could end up anywhere, but usually just limits itself to the entirety of his face. In any case, I have no doubt that I could call him during the season and he would get me tickets to a Pawtucket Red Sox game and chat with me afterwards; he's just that way with everyone he lays eyes on. UL is a little more shy, but really nice and gets kicks out of little things. He was so amused to see me stand up at the plate lefty against him in the second game, his eyes nearly popped out of his head; when I got a base hit, he nearly fell over laughing.

After the games (there's one at 9:30 a.m. and another at 1:30 p.m., with about an hour and half break in between for lunch and autographs), we wait a long line in the trainer's area to get ice wrapped on whatever muscles are killing us, whether it be hamstrings, quads, calves, shoulders or elbows (or in my case, an oblique) and/or wait in a long line for one of the two ice tubs available to us, in which we dunk our aching bodies for 10-15 minutes at a time. Then we hit the showers and possibly encounter a conversation with a naked for major leaguer, some of whom seem to almost prefer to be naked than clothed. Today, Oil Can walked past me in the trainer's area in a towel to help himself to a handful of Vaseline, which he promptly ran through his hair while telling about 37 stories at once. After the showers, we get in a van or bus back to the hotel and relax in the hotel bar or get together with others to go out to eat at nearby chain restaurants (they're all chain restaurants here), or hibernate in our room, just hoping to feel well enough to play lousy again the next day.