Saturday, February 7, 2009

Living The Dream V

Day 5 of my brother Ed's trip to Red Sox Fantasy Camp. Despite a bad hamstring and a sprained right finger on his throwing hand, Ed's bat is on fire and he's pitching effectively without his middle finger touching the ball. Here's more from Ed:

So last night the entire team took our coaches (Spaceman Bill Lee and Felix Maldonado) out to dinner...I had the pleasure of hearing more stories about more things than I ever thought possible. I can neither repeat, understand or remember any of them. But I'll never forget them.

3 1/2 hours later I was walking back to the hotel crossing the street (Florida Highway 41 - kind of like a six-lane Berlin [CT] Turnpike) with the Spaceman and his wife. You wouldn't believe some of the things that come out of his mouth. 10:30PM can't wait to get to bed.....before I do anymore damage.

In the morning one of my teammates was driving to the park and I was thankful to get to the trainer early....first it was 15 minutes in the hot whirlpool (good thing because it was 35 degrees at 6:00AM again!!), then 10 minutes on the stationary bike. After breakfast and a lot of stretching from the trainer, back, biceps, shoulder, a wrapped hamstring and bandaged finger we had our last clubhouse meeting...At the clubhouse meeting, each coach reported on the previous day's games.

Two of the coaches we played against the previous day (Jon Valentin and Rich Gedman) were very complimentary to our team and me in particular...very nice to hear. The game statistics for the first 6 games were posted (sorry no pictures today). I have now taken over the batting average lead (.824 they must have found another hit somewhere) with one more day to go. All we need to do is win Game 1 and we are in the championship final.

I lead off Game 1 with a single and advanced to 3rd on two consecutive singles loading the bases in the first inning with no outs. The next guy hit a one hopper to the pitcher who threw home for a home to first double-play. The next guy grounded weakly to first and we squandered an opportunity to score first.....not a good sign.

The other team answered with 2 runs in the bottom of the first. Then our bats went silent....for some inexplicable reason, the team could not produce a run scoring inning or put a ball anywhere other than an opponents glove. To top that off, every time the other team hit the ball, it was deep when we were playing in and a blooper when we were playing back. One particular blooper to left cost me my hamstring....again!!

Fortunately, the trainer was right there at the field to work on the cramping muscle and tighten up the wrap. This time however it was worse than the last time and I had to miss an inning for the first time since I got here. The other team scored 2 more while I was on my back and we could only scratch across one run and the rest of the game went by in a flash....4 to 1...game over.....no championship (my roommate's team won) and we had to play a consolation (3rd place game) at 1:00PM......damn!!

We were in shock.....it must have looked pretty bad.....you know it's bad when Rich Gedman (member of the 1986 Red Sox team the lost to the Mets) comes over to console you......

After Game 1 we go back inside for lunch.....and nobody special drops by ... Unless you think Kevin Youklis, Jon Lester and Manny Delcarmen aren't special. Sunny skies and warmer temps finally return and we get to see 72 degrees (not exactly beach weather but its suppose to be 80 degrees tomorrow).

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