Day two lets the games begin
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 game. I got my room key and headed upstairs. After a quick shower and I made my way to the Island Club for tonight's festivities.
Even though this is my sixth camp I still have the butterflies inside when I go to these things on the opening day. I saw familiar faces but mostly the room was filled with rookies who are wide-eyed and in some cases in mild shock over all that they have already seen. And they haven't seen much of anything yet. I missed the early workout, but that's okay. I never accomplish much of anything during that thing anyway. The only thing I missed is the thrill of seeing my new uniform, this year with a new number, in my locker. I shipped my equipment down last week via the fine folks at Federal Express (does anyone refer to them by that name anymore?).
My designated teammate this year is my good friend Greg Cockrell, whom I first met in 2017. He and I have become as close as blood brothers in the past 24 months. We contact each other during the year and encourage each other in our endeavors, whatever they may be. He has even honored me by asking me to be in his wedding party in May of this year. He saved me a seat at a table which also included my good friend Pat Cooley. We all met each other in '17 based primarily that our lockers were next to each other due to our last names being sequential on the list of players who did not select designated teammates in advance. Sometimes life is all about timing.
The dinner was fun with Commissioner Eric Heilmann presiding at the podium. The coaches were all introduced and after dinner we heard from all of the rookies, who each told us of how they ended up here. One rookie is a Cubs fan who came at the request of his friend. Another is a woman who attended Red Sox camp last year and now she is returning the gesture this year. One is going to turn, I believe 82 soon. And one is actually the father of former Met and camp coach Nelson Figueroa. It was so cool to see how "Figgy" was so proud of his dad being in camp. It was a sweet moment to see them standing together during the intros.
Tomorrow we have evaluations in the morning followed by the draft, the announcement of teams and then game number one of the week. I'm hoping to have fun, play well and stay out of the trainer's room. One of the beautiful things will be watching the rookies put on their uniforms for the very first time. I remember my first year, 2013, and the thrill of seeing myself in the mirrored door that you walk through as you enter the clubhouse. It was like shaving 40 years off my age. And some stubble on my face, for that matter.
The happy reunions will continue as I greet non-rookies, and along with it will be that moment when my brain cannot come up with the name of the guy in front of me. That's the moment when I fall back on generic terms like "bud", "pal", "bro", "kid", big-guy", "fella", "big pimpin'", "my man" and the ever-popular "dude".
Day two is tomorrow of my week of fun. I look forward to reconnecting with guys I've played with and against over five of the last six years. But if I call you "home slice" then your name is not only lost in my memory bank, my memory bank account is overdrawn.
See you tomorrow. Let's Go Mets!
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 game. I got my room key and headed upstairs. After a quick shower and I made my way to the Island Club for tonight's festivities.
Even though this is my sixth camp I still have the butterflies inside when I go to these things on the opening day. I saw familiar faces but mostly the room was filled with rookies who are wide-eyed and in some cases in mild shock over all that they have already seen. And they haven't seen much of anything yet. I missed the early workout, but that's okay. I never accomplish much of anything during that thing anyway. The only thing I missed is the thrill of seeing my new uniform, this year with a new number, in my locker. I shipped my equipment down last week via the fine folks at Federal Express (does anyone refer to them by that name anymore?).
My designated teammate this year is my good friend Greg Cockrell, whom I first met in 2017. He and I have become as close as blood brothers in the past 24 months. We contact each other during the year and encourage each other in our endeavors, whatever they may be. He has even honored me by asking me to be in his wedding party in May of this year. He saved me a seat at a table which also included my good friend Pat Cooley. We all met each other in '17 based primarily that our lockers were next to each other due to our last names being sequential on the list of players who did not select designated teammates in advance. Sometimes life is all about timing.
The dinner was fun with Commissioner Eric Heilmann presiding at the podium. The coaches were all introduced and after dinner we heard from all of the rookies, who each told us of how they ended up here. One rookie is a Cubs fan who came at the request of his friend. Another is a woman who attended Red Sox camp last year and now she is returning the gesture this year. One is going to turn, I believe 82 soon. And one is actually the father of former Met and camp coach Nelson Figueroa. It was so cool to see how "Figgy" was so proud of his dad being in camp. It was a sweet moment to see them standing together during the intros.
Tomorrow we have evaluations in the morning followed by the draft, the announcement of teams and then game number one of the week. I'm hoping to have fun, play well and stay out of the trainer's room. One of the beautiful things will be watching the rookies put on their uniforms for the very first time. I remember my first year, 2013, and the thrill of seeing myself in the mirrored door that you walk through as you enter the clubhouse. It was like shaving 40 years off my age. And some stubble on my face, for that matter.
The happy reunions will continue as I greet non-rookies, and along with it will be that moment when my brain cannot come up with the name of the guy in front of me. That's the moment when I fall back on generic terms like "bud", "pal", "bro", "kid", big-guy", "fella", "big pimpin'", "my man" and the ever-popular "dude".
See you tomorrow. Let's Go Mets!
Day two of camp is behind us, and eventful it was. The day started off when I hit the lobby just before 7am. I knew that the first bus of the morning was out to depart at 6:45, so I figured that I would let those taking that transport make their way before I descended to the lobby level of the Hilton Garden Inn. But when I stepped off of the elevator the lobby was an assemblage of campers who had not left yet. I found my buds Greg and Pat "Coolio" Cooley and asked them if they needed a lift. They said they would take one and so we headed for the door. Phil Forman caught me and asked if he could hitch a ride and I said sure, so he joined us on the way to the parking lot. My friend Rob Block rounded out the fivesome and we headed out to pile into my rented Jaguar XE. (Is it still called "piling-on" when you're referring to a Jaguar? Just wondering).
We reached the clubhouse just after 7 and headed to our respective lockers. Now, this would be the first time that I was to see my locker for this year's camp. I found it, only four lockers from my original location in 2013. It's actually wider than the standard locker which most campers have. I'm not sure if the veterans get any different treatment when they are divvied-up, but I am sure appreciative, regardless of the reason.
My uniform number this year is 7. In the past it has most usually been 11, as a tribute to my late mother, Rose, who was born on the 11th of July. Nearly all of my baseball and hockey jerseys that are personalized bear the number 11. But in recent seasons I've diversified a bit. In 2017 I wore 42 at MFC in honor of Jackie Robinson who had broken the modern-day color line in the game some 70 years earlier. There's a story about my mother, myself and Jackie on my regular blog at ramblinrod.blogspot.com. Jackie also lived not too far from me in my hometown of Stamford, Connecticut when I was a kid and before his death in 1972. I wore 10 last season to honor former Met manager Terry Collins. I always wanted the Mets to be managed by someone named Collins, but Rod was the first name I had in mind. 7 this year is covering the July portion of my mum's birthday.
After hitting the dining room for my customary grits, bacon, toast and orange juice I returned to my locker to unpack the bags which I had sent down last week. I hung all of my shirts on hangers and pretty much moved into my area for the week. At 8:45 we convened in the tent and the rookies learned some of the ins and outs from the staff and trainers about what lay ahead for them in the coming days.
First up after that was the stretching exercises on field four led by representatives from the Hospital for Special Surgery, the sponsor of MFC. Some of us did really well at the exercises. Others did not.
Following groan-a-thon which was the stretching exercises we headed off to our stations for outfield play, infield play, pitching and hitting. After the evaluations took place the mysterious and top-secret draft took place during our lunch time. The coaches called everyone back to the tent to read the names of the teams as they had been drafted by the coaching staff.
I was drafted by Nelson Figueroa and Rodney "Crash" McCray and now a member of their team, known as "Crash & Burn". Our first game would be at 2:30 against the team coached by Todd Pratt and Pete Schourek. With this in mind, Greg and I dressed in our alternate road jerseys fo the game on field six.
We didn't fare as well as any of us had hoped. We started off well and put a two-spot on the board in the top of the first inning. But just as quickly we gave up three to go down by a run in the bottom of the frame. It could actually been worse if not for a top-notch play turned in by our center fielder who after catching a fly ball threw a sweet one-hopper to "G-Dawg" Cockrell at the plate to catch a runner attempting to score from third. The runner and ball arrived simultaneously and he made the tag and held onto the pill for the second out of the twin-killing.From there it kinda went downhill. We dropped the game by a score of 14-3. I didn't help the cause any by turning an 0-for-3 performance at the plate with two strikeouts. I believe that we will all be better tomorrow and such the outcome tomorrow should be different. I need to get myself off the schneid. A 3-for-3 would do that in a quick hurry.
This evening we took our esteemed coaches out for dinner to get a start on meeting our new teammates and get to the business of being a team. "Figgy" and "Crash" are great guys and they are a great deal of fun to be around. I often see and enjoy Figgy's work on the SNY sports network which I am able to view on my DirecTV receiver. I have gotten down most of my new teammates' names but another day should solidify that. Having uniforms on with numbers should help that process a great deal.
Tomorrow we have team photos in the morning followed by game two of seven for the week. Crash & Burn is 0-1 so far, but so are four other teams. Time to get a win or two and get back into the championship race. It's like the late, great Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn said, "We know we are better than this, but we can'tprove it."
I look for the trainer's room to be busy tomorrow. Hopefully without yours truly.
See you tomorrow.
#7
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