Looking to the future
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 writing about something you love is quite easy.
But my writing today has to do with this year's camp. I attended week 2 the last two years so I signed up for week 1 in 2020 as I wished to hang out with some of my family whom I'd met in my first four camps. But I need to postpone my anticipation for a year as I will not be at MFC in 2020.
Those of you whom I played along with in my first four camps may remember my wife Bryn. After our first camp in 2013 she was actually more excited about returning in 2014, at first. While I grew up near NYC, she actually lived there for a number of years, on the upper West Side of Manhattan. When we first met I informed her that the best she could hope for in my list of loves would be third place, behind my mother and baseball. She said she could be with that. She became a Met fan because of me and now bleeds orange & blue as do I. She watched me turn into the kid she knew was inside of her husband during my first MFC. She got to hear the New York accents of my teammates and it took her back to her fondness for the greatest city in the world. In 2014 she was there when my team went 7-0 and won a championship. She got to meet one of my coaches, the late Anthony Young, who celebrated a birthday on the day we won the title. She also met Stacey Weiner, the wife of my teammate Lee Weiner, who is now her best friend. So not only can YOU make life-long friends at MFC, sometimes our significant others do the same.
Bryn's health has been hampered for about 2 1/2 years now, but 2019 was a particularly tough year. it has been very hard on the two of us, as I am the primary care person and I have chosen to not attend MFC in 2020. Our hope is that we will both be in Port St. Lucie in 12 months, probably week 1, for a week which will become the 7th-best week of my life.
I will miss each of you and expect to follow some of your efforts on the Game Changer app. If any of you want to read my previous blogs from past years simply start with the year number (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 or 2019) followed by "metsfantasycamp.blogspot.com" and check it out yourself. (e.g. 2013metsfantasycamp.blogspot.com). Earliest entries are at the bottom of the page and move forward as you go up the page.
Before I go, I wish to pass along some words to the rookies.
1) Catch the earliest bus ride from Fast Eddie that you can. Sit close to the front and listen to Eddie's stories. He's a great storyteller and he is part of the experience which MFC is.
2) Get up early and get to the complex. Trust me-sitting in front of your locker, even when the clubhouse is quiet and before the place fills up, is better than most things you will do all year.
3) The locker room is loaded with people who are just like you. They love this game and they love the New York Mets. Don't be afraid to ask anyone for help or advice about things camp-related. They are brothers and sisters from another mother or mister, and many of them have names which you will be saving to your smartphone before you return home.
4) Pace yourself. The trainers' room line gets longer every morning. I see too many players unable to play by day three because they pushed too hard early in the week.
5) You're going to forget to bring something. You won't know what it is until you get there. But don't worry about it too much. You'll remember it next year.
6) Relax. We were ALL you at one time.
7) You will never see this great game the same way again. It'll make getting old worth it.
8) Phil Foreman is the man. Just ask him.
9) Don't forget to wear a hat to Kangaroo Court. It's a rookie tradition.
10) As Crash Davis said, "This game is fun, dammit". Now go have some.
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 writing about something you love is quite easy.
But my writing today has to do with this year's camp. I attended week 2 the last two years so I signed up for week 1 in 2020 as I wished to hang out with some of my family whom I'd met in my first four camps. But I need to postpone my anticipation for a year as I will not be at MFC in 2020.
Those of you whom I played along with in my first four camps may remember my wife Bryn. After our first camp in 2013 she was actually more excited about returning in 2014, at first. While I grew up near NYC, she actually lived there for a number of years, on the upper West Side of Manhattan. When we first met I informed her that the best she could hope for in my list of loves would be third place, behind my mother and baseball. She said she could be with that. She became a Met fan because of me and now bleeds orange & blue as do I. She watched me turn into the kid she knew was inside of her husband during my first MFC. She got to hear the New York accents of my teammates and it took her back to her fondness for the greatest city in the world. In 2014 she was there when my team went 7-0 and won a championship. She got to meet one of my coaches, the late Anthony Young, who celebrated a birthday on the day we won the title. She also met Stacey Weiner, the wife of my teammate Lee Weiner, who is now her best friend. So not only can YOU make life-long friends at MFC, sometimes our significant others do the same.
Bryn's health has been hampered for about 2 1/2 years now, but 2019 was a particularly tough year. it has been very hard on the two of us, as I am the primary care person and I have chosen to not attend MFC in 2020. Our hope is that we will both be in Port St. Lucie in 12 months, probably week 1, for a week which will become the 7th-best week of my life.
I will miss each of you and expect to follow some of your efforts on the Game Changer app. If any of you want to read my previous blogs from past years simply start with the year number (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 or 2019) followed by "metsfantasycamp.blogspot.com" and check it out yourself. (e.g. 2013metsfantasycamp.blogspot.com). Earliest entries are at the bottom of the page and move forward as you go up the page.
Before I go, I wish to pass along some words to the rookies.
1) Catch the earliest bus ride from Fast Eddie that you can. Sit close to the front and listen to Eddie's stories. He's a great storyteller and he is part of the experience which MFC is.
2) Get up early and get to the complex. Trust me-sitting in front of your locker, even when the clubhouse is quiet and before the place fills up, is better than most things you will do all year.
3) The locker room is loaded with people who are just like you. They love this game and they love the New York Mets. Don't be afraid to ask anyone for help or advice about things camp-related. They are brothers and sisters from another mother or mister, and many of them have names which you will be saving to your smartphone before you return home.
4) Pace yourself. The trainers' room line gets longer every morning. I see too many players unable to play by day three because they pushed too hard early in the week.
5) You're going to forget to bring something. You won't know what it is until you get there. But don't worry about it too much. You'll remember it next year.
6) Relax. We were ALL you at one time.
7) You will never see this great game the same way again. It'll make getting old worth it.
8) Phil Foreman is the man. Just ask him.
9) Don't forget to wear a hat to Kangaroo Court. It's a rookie tradition.
10) As Crash Davis said, "This game is fun, dammit". Now go have some.
See you in 2021.
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