Raking The Yard with Edward Scissorhands
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 the two hits later in the game and the two ribeye steaks, as Keith Hernandez would say, felt good to come through with.
Game two on the day pitted us against the Spin Rates, coached by Buzz Capra and Chad Kreuter. This was even more of a see-saw affair. We jumped out to a 5-2 lead after one frame. Trailed 7-5 after two. Led 11-10 after three. Trailed 13-12 after four. And then the well ran dry as we fell 17-12. There were plays in this game that will be talked about for a long time. Many of them faux pas by us on defense, yours truly included. It's like there's a curse on some of our gloves/hands and we're gonna need to sacrifice a live rooster or find Jobu to take the hex away.
The evening ended with the bull session in the tent at the complex. I did not actually attend the session as I was invited by some very good friends to dinner here in PSL. But I will be looking to hear of some of the tales that were told at the event. The team actually met in the hotel bar to have a little time to let each other know that we just need to relax and play within ourselves and that we can win some games starting with tomorrow's pair.
Tomorrow we get back to it with our first game at 9:30 am, and game two at 2:00 pm. As Yogi Berra once said, "The other teams could make trouble for us if they win". THAT'S what we're trying to avoid. Tune in tomorrow to see what happened.
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 the two hits later in the game and the two ribeye steaks, as Keith Hernandez would say, felt good to come through with.
Game two on the day pitted us against the Spin Rates, coached by Buzz Capra and Chad Kreuter. This was even more of a see-saw affair. We jumped out to a 5-2 lead after one frame. Trailed 7-5 after two. Led 11-10 after three. Trailed 13-12 after four. And then the well ran dry as we fell 17-12. There were plays in this game that will be talked about for a long time. Many of them faux pas by us on defense, yours truly included. It's like there's a curse on some of our gloves/hands and we're gonna need to sacrifice a live rooster or find Jobu to take the hex away.
The evening ended with the bull session in the tent at the complex. I did not actually attend the session as I was invited by some very good friends to dinner here in PSL. But I will be looking to hear of some of the tales that were told at the event. The team actually met in the hotel bar to have a little time to let each other know that we just need to relax and play within ourselves and that we can win some games starting with tomorrow's pair.
Tomorrow we get back to it with our first game at 9:30 am, and game two at 2:00 pm. As Yogi Berra once said, "The other teams could make trouble for us if they win". THAT'S what we're trying to avoid. Tune in tomorrow to see what happened.
Today's entry comes as your writer is in conflict.....with himself. You see, on one hand it was a very good day, but on the other hand (the left, mostly) it left much to be desired. Allow me to explain.
The day started like most at camp. Brekky in the cafeteria, no bacon, but sausage pinch-hitting for bacon did a fine job. The morning meeting in the tent with the daily handing out of the ropes. Neither recipient was in attendance, which is too bad because the gold rope winner was a chap named Wayne Wilson, who celebrated his 83rd birthday yesterday. Let me repeat that. The man turned eighty-three years of age yesterday. He was not in attendance due to his needing a cortisone shot. Heck, at 83 I hope to be in good enough shape to where a cortisone shot would be necessary, period.
The stretching session was attended by maybe 60% of those who attended on Monday. That number will decrease tomorrow, most likely. I was one of the attendees and I must admit that today was tougher to move at the pace the trainer was setting. At one point he had us lying on our backs crossing one leg over the other. I shouted, "Can someone bring me a pillow?" and the group broke up into laughter. It's amazing how comfortable a well-manicured outfield can be at 9:10 am.
Following what could have turned into a mass camper nap, we headed to our fields for respective fields for our first game of the day. We were tied with two other teams who were also 0-3 thus far in the tourney. But we knew we had to win this game for sure just to make the playoffs. (Insert Jim Mora "playoff" rant here).
We played Duffy's Wine-O's and jumped out to an early 2-0 lead. We extended it to 7-2 after two innings. I smoked a single to left off of my good buddy Tom Formicola to help with the rally. We were pretty much done scoring for the most part. Our opponents picked away, scoring single tallies in the last three innings but we held on to prevail 8-5. Nelson Figueroa Sr. got the W as he went the last 6 full innings scattering 10 hits over that span. "Papi" as some of us refer to him, won the team's game MVP award which is our game lineup card signed by the coaches. We had 17 hits ourselves, three of them by yours truly in my first three-hit game in a longer span of time than I can remember. It was a great team effort and at his point we just had to wait to find out if we were going to be playoff-bound. We found out during lunch that we were the #7 seed and would be playing the Spin Rates, who we lost to just yesterday afternoon.
One of the funnier things I heard in the clubhouse today was one camper asking another, "Well, Swoboda played for the Mets, and Mookie played for the Mets. When did Collins play for the Mets?" Now, the fact that someone actually thought that I looked like I played for the big team is both humbling and mildly "whack". Equal parts of both I'd say.
Game two began at 2 pm and C&B was stressed to the max. We didn't make the routine plays and we couldn't make the even tougher plays either. Before we knew it we were down by a touchdown and the extra point and it was only the top of the second.
I batted in the second and walked in a very good at bat against a very good pitcher in Jeff Ahn. Figgy was very upset at our effort in inning number one and he told us we needed to win every inning from here on out. We narrowed the gap by scoring once in the second and twice in the third to trail 7-3. I led off the fourth with hard single to center but I was left stranded and the inning ended. We got things cooking in the fifth inning. We got the bases loaded when I came to the plate. We'd already scored twice on a homer by Joe King to make the score 8-5. I blooped one over the shortstop and in front of the left fielder to score a run. I hit a similar ball yesterday and the shortstop made an over-the-shoulder catch which got turned into a double play. This hit made up for the ball that I basically hit "on the screws" yesterday that the wind held up for the left fielder and became a flout instead of a double or triple.
Later in the inning, with one out I was on second with another runner on first. A ground ball to the third baseman was bobbled and I slid to beat the throw to the shortstop covering. I beat the throw by a good full second, but the infield umpire called me out. It was a terrible call and I voiced my opinion by stating that "Stevie Wonder could've made that call!" And he could have too. I was livid too, but the damage had been done. The rally was done and that was the last run we scored in the game. We were still in it at 8-7 at that point but that was as close as we got to making the score even again. The final was 11-7, but that first inning is what killed our chances. Once again my glove let me down as there were seemingly makable plays that either went off of my glove or I managed to do the smallest thing to not handle the throws properly. I know my infielders lost a lot of confidence in making he throws across the diamond to me, and for good cause. My Wilson A2000 glove acted like a Wilson A200 this week. Remember I mentioned something about needing to sacrifice a live rooster to get the curse off of my glove? You see what I'm saying.
I won the team's game MVP award for game two. I was 6-for-6 with a walk on the day. When I received the lineup card after Figgy announced my name he also threw in that my fancy glove may have the same usefulness as some of the silverware on the table in the cafeteria. I told him that I think the subscription on my glove had expired. It was very cool to win, but I would've traded that for a win, that's for sure.
Tomorrow has rains in the forecast so we're gonna start playing a little earlier than we did yesterday and today. We all hope that the rains will hold off until after the games are completed. The championship game is due to be played tomorrow at 6 pm.
Today's quote comes to us care of former-Met Ken Singleton who once said, "A man once told me to walk with the Lord. I'd rather walk with the bases loaded."
I've gotta get some sleep as I need to get up early so that I can go looking for, you guessed it, a live rooster.
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