2019 Mets Fantasy Camp

Greetings to all of my MFC brothers and sisters, I have so very much enjoyed reading the posts from this year's rookies and the veterans who have offered their own stories of experiences that could fill volumes with great memories.  To the rookies who are reading this, some of those veterans will tell you the I am the unofficial poet laureate of MFC.  I have attended camps in the years 2013-2019, excluding 2015.  I wrote a daily blog for each of those camp weeks.  I've had the pleasure of having campers tell me how much they have enjoyed my writings each morning as they have followed my blogs written each evening before my heading to bed and looking forward to the next day's festivities.  I've also had rookies come over to my locker on the first day or two of camp to tell me that they'd read my blogs before making the trip to PSL and had looked forward to meeting me in person.  For someone who never much liked writing while I was in school, I found that w...

Thursday, January 24, 2019 The rain threat that I had seen on the Weather Channel website some two weeks ago showed up in earnest today.  It was clear when Greg and I arrived at the complex. But by the time we had the morning meeting, which we moved up in order to attempt getting at least one game completed, the front had arrived on the Treasure Coast.   It rained torrentially for about an hour, forcing the postponement of today's pair of games.  Those games will be made up tomorrow at 9:30 and 2:00.  The pro game will have to be cancelled as there won't be time to play it. We each had the chance to hit off of a pro today in the batting cage and not at batting practice speed.  The highlight for many of us today was seeing Nelson Figueroa, Sr. batting against his son in the cage. Junior did not take it easy on his old man and threw some "gas" on a couple of his pitches.  "Papi" made contact on a few, but it was a thrill to see this family mome...

Thursday, January 24, 2019 The rain threat that I had seen on the Weather Channel website some two weeks ago showed up in earnest today.  It was clear when Greg and I arrived at the complex. But by the time we had the morning meeting, which we moved up in order to attempt getting at least one game completed, the front had arrived on the Treasure Coast.   It rained torrentially for about an hour, forcing the postponement of today's pair of games.  Those games will be made up tomorrow at 9:30 and 2:00.  The pro game will have to be cancelled as there won't be time to play it. We each had the chance to hit off of a pro today in the batting cage and not at batting practice speed.  The highlight for many of us today was seeing Nelson Figueroa, Sr. batting against his son in the cage. Junior did not take it easy on his old man and threw some "gas" on a couple of his pitches.  "Papi" made contact on a few, but it was a thrill to see this family ...

Tuesday, January 22, 2019 The third day of the week opened with the photo sessions. We made the long walk over to First Data Field where the big team plays their home spring training games.  Team photos were first and then each player took a photo with the entire group of coaches.  From there we made our way over to field 2 for our matchup with the '86ers, coached by Barry Lyons and Ed Hearn.  Our bats were in good shape but we kept giving the lead away. After leading 9-3 after three innings we scored but once more and dropped the contest by a score of 18-10.  I finally got my first hit of camp.  But in my first at bat of the day I hit a blooper over the head of the shortstop, a young man who is I believe the youngest camper here at age 30 (I own ties older than that) who made an Ozzie Smith-like play to foil the at bat and keep me from getting an rbi.  He also doubled the runner on second base off to complete the double play. But ...

Tuesday, January 22, 2019 The third day of the week opened with the photo sessions. We made the long walk over to First Data Field where the big team plays their home spring training games.  Team photos were first and then each player took a photo with the entire group of coaches.  From there we made our way over to field 2 for our matchup with the '86ers, coached by Barry Lyons and Ed Hearn.  Our bats were in good shape but we kept giving the lead away. After leading 9-3 after three innings we scored but once more and dropped the contest by a score of 18-10.  I finally got my first hit of camp in my plate appearance. But in my first at bat I hit a blooper over the head of the shortstop, a young man who is I believe the youngest camper here at age 30 (I own ties older than that) who made an Ozzie Smith-like play to foil the at bat and keep me from getting an rbi.  He also doubled the runner on second base off to complete the double p...

A new week of fun and memories has begun in Port St. Lucie, Florida.  I arrived in the state last evening and picked up my rental car.  Shortly thereafter I checked into my hotel for the evening.  After a long day I chose not to drive down immediately and give myself a decent night's sleep before heading south in the morning.  Woke up this mornin'. (sounds like the beginning of a blues tune, right?) and headed to local location of First Watch.  First Watch is a very good restaurant which I highly recommend.  They don't have them in the Twin Cities, which is a good thing-or maybe it isn't.  They have something called Million Dollar Bacon.  It's everything that something with that name should be...and then some.    Enough foodspeak. Off I headed down Florida's Turnpike to Port St. Lucie.  Upon arrival I saw a few campers, mostly unknown to myself, in the lobby watching the later stages of the NFC Championship ...