Sunday Morning Coffee (on Monday) — January 20, 2025 — Groundhog Week
By Roy Berger— Vero Beach, Florida
(Note- This is the first Sunday Morning Coffee on a Monday. We needed a travel day home from Vero Beach. This is the second of two parts of my latest and last foray into playing old guy baseball. Part 1 from January 12 is at: https://open.substack.com/pub/bergerr/p/sunday-morning-coffee-january-12?r=4222wa&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false)
Monday afternoon, January 13, 2025: There’s little doubt you’ve reached your destination when you arrive at the intersection of Roy Campanella Avenue and Jackie Robinson Drive in Vero Beach, Florida. It’s the Jackie Robinson Training Complex, formerly Dodgertown, former spring training home for both the Brooklyn and LA Dodgers since 1948. In 2007 the Dodgers moved to Arizona. Even though Major League Baseball now owns the facility, the Dodgers roots run deep, very deep, and are proudly acknowledged throughout the 80-acre campus. This will be my home for the next six days, for my 15th baseball fantasy camp, called Legends Fantasy Camp. The camp is independently run with a distinct Detroit Tigers flavor to it. The Tigers disbanded their camp five years ago and the former director took it independent. I checked into the ‘villa’ I was assigned on Sandy Koufax Way. I figured it was their idea to keep the Jews together. Don’t be fooled by the villa tag. When I see a villa, it’s poolside at Bellagio with all the fixin’s. This one was what a Super 8 or Red Roof Inn might call a ‘villa.’ At least it was freshly painted. The good news is we get to stay on campus for the week and don’t have schlep in everyday from a hotel off-site.
My past baseball camps usually had anywhere between 80-100 players with six to eight teams. This one had 28 players registered. Twenty-five showed up. Two teams for this camp. Age range of the campers was 42-75 with a large concentration in their 60’s and 70’s, all eligible for a senior movie discount. There will be a championship game on Saturday between, who else, but the two teams. Which meant one side could go 0-6 and win the title with a lone victory on Saturday. The pro staff of former big leaguers who coach us was also paired down to six. The names of the teams were pretty original- Team 1 and Team 2. T1 had 13 players, T2, 12. That won’t bode well for healthy bodies to get through the week. I was assigned to T2, and our coaching staff of Mike Heath, Rusty Meacham and Juan Berenguer. They have three World Series rings between them. The bad guys, T1, are led by Milt Wilcox, Doug Bair and Jon Warden. They have four rings. We were reminded of the fantasy camp mantra: ‘Start slow and gradually taper off’ and then we went to drink.
Tuesday, January 14: Damn, it’s cold. The temps were 49 in the morning, eventually getting to 60 in the afternoon; however, the winds blew at 18 mph and gusted to 26. As expected the majority of campers are from Detroit and they loved the weather. It was 12 degrees and snowing back home. The rest of the camp is geographically spread with players from Miami, Fort Myers, Dallas, Phoenix, Mobile, AL, Toronto, Memphis, Philly, Indy, St. Louis and Vegas.
For me, the first big eyesight test (see last week’s SMC) was the morning skills clinic when we took fielding and batting practice. That was after the second biggest test, whether or not my Tigers uniform, not worn since 2011, would still fit. Frankly, I was surprised I still had it; that my wife hadn’t dumped it in a Salvation Army bin and there was some lanky kid in Guatelmala walking around with a Detroit #56 Berger jersey. My britches were loose, real loose, which meant more belt notches. Thank you Lifetime Fitness. Though my batting practice was horrendous it was more a function of timing than eyesight. I now can clearly see a thrown ball coming at me, a big difference from Pirates camp three years ago, post-injury, when I saw three or four balls coming and had to try and identify the real one. That didn’t work out too well unless you were a pitcher facing me. Now, after optical strabismus surgery, where the healthy muscle from the good eye is aligned with the injured one, my vision was 95% of what it was pre-injury. Amazing.
Tuesday afternoon was the opening game. Team 1 played Team 2. Get used to it. That will happen a lot this week. The games are seven innings and in this camp it’s totally camper pitch. Walk three batters in an inning and hit the showers. I’ll admit I had some butterflies not being totally sure how my vision would react. Our coaches wrote me in at first base. When I went out to first I did what all first baseman have to do and that’s smooth the sand around the bag. Then it hit me that Gil Hodges, Wes Parker, Steve Garvey and hundreds more did the same thing at that very same spot. I was hitting sixth in the line-up. That was fair. My first at-bat I was mentored by one of the camp veterans, Tom Duncan, who told me the opposing pitcher, Greg McGlone the most consistent hurler in camp, always grooves the first one down the middle. I never swing at the first pitch but after getting the tip I did, I had to. I banged the first offering to center for a base hit. The butterflies flew away. My second time up, with two outs and the bases loaded, I grounded weakly to first. My final time was a clean hit to left and an RBI. We lost 4-1. I had two of our four team hits and the only RBI. I should have left that night. Any question I had about my eyesight was now gone. Cheers to Vegas ophthalmologist Dr. Grace Shin who did the surgery.
Wednesday, January 15: We are sharing the training complex with 59 students enrolled in an MLB Umpire Prospect Development Camp. About half will be selected to continue on to a career of second guessing and verbal abuse. The remainder will be cut loose to make a legitimate living.
Our games are played at the main stadium on the campus. There are a half dozen playing fields anchored by Holman Stadium, built in 1953 at a cost of $63,000. The stadium seats 6,500. At any given time we had two, four or even eight people in the stands. Plenty of good seats still available. Crowds, used loosely, depended on the bingo schedule at the Vero Beach Community Center.
The legs usually are the first to go on day two but mine felt fine. I did have pain in the right glute, a result of stretching for throws at first base. The first baseman in fantasy camps is tested from the get-go. Normally you have a good shortstop who most times can rifle the ball to first. We were no exception with our captain Duncan. Third base is always a challenge with balls coming at you from the left, right and on one, two or three hops. Sometimes they just die on the infield grass. Second base is the easiest throw, but once that ball leaves the second baseman’s hands you take no chances. The boys stretched my glutes every which-way imaginable trying to chase down their throws. It was a real pain in the ass. Literally.
I had a good pre-game batting practice session on Wednesday which is normally trouble . And it was, going 0-2 with a walk in the first game of the day. Team 1 got 10 runs in the top of the seventh to break open a tie game and win again, 13-4. In the afternoon I went 2-2 with a walk, scored the go-ahead run in the top of the seventh but that didn’t stick. The bad guys got two in the bottom of the inning to walk us off 5-4. We also lost our first player of the week with a sprained hand swinging the bat. Wimp. We are now down to 11 healthy.
I had been platooning at first base, playing every other inning with another first baseman camper until Juan Berenguer told me midway through the second game he wants me to play every inning. Yes sir.
We are now 0-3 and the dream of losing six straight and winning the championship on Saturday with a 1-6 record is still very much alive.
Three straight losses wasn’t enough to drain the enthusiasm from our coaching staff. We got very lucky when Berenguer, Heath and Meacham, all with Tiger pedigrees, were assigned to us.
Panama native Berenguer, 70, pitched 15 years in the majors for the Mets, Royals, Blue Jays, Tigers, Giants, Twins and Braves. He kept Atlas Van Lines on speed dial. Senor Smoke ended his career with a 67-62 record as a middle reliever with a respectable 3.90 ERA. He won the World Series with Detroit in 1984 and Minnesota in ‘87.
Heath, 69, played 14 seasons of pro ball primarily as a catcher. He was a career .252 hitter for the Yankees, A’s, Cardinals and Tigers. He was Thurman Munson’s back-up on the 1978 Yankees World Championship team.
Meacham, 56, was a late addition to the camp and we were glad he said yes. Originally, Howard Johnson was to be our third staff member, but he took ill. Meacham lives in nearby Stuart, Florida, half an hour away. A right-handed pitcher, he had a career record of 23-17 over eight seasons with Detroit, Kansas City, Seattle, Houston and Tampa Bay. A delightful guy, he’s affable and always willing to teach. He was as excited as any of us to be here.
Thursday, January 16: Once again, the day was chilly and windy. This camp is also turning into Groundhog Week. We play on the same field, use the same dugout and play against the same team every day.
It also turned into the strangest day I’ve ever had at a baseball camp.
We got the news at breakfast that the camper with whom I had been platooning for almost two games left early that morning with a collapsed lung. Big-time wimp. We are now down to 10. And then at game time we got the sobering word that the great Bob Uecker had passed.
My first at-bat in the morning game I walked and came around to score. My second time up, in the third inning, was vintage fantasy camp— if you think it can’t happen, it does. With the count on me at 1-2, Jack Caldwell, Team 1’s catcher, attempted to throw the ball back to the pitcher but instead grooved one that hit me right on the batting helmet in the left temple. Where else would a former synagogue president get hit but in the temple? It absolutely stunned me, and I went down on one knee. If it was a boxing match, I would have been given the eight count. I was dazed but got back up to finish the at-bat. I don’t remember much of it, but I struck out swinging for the only time of the week. I thought I was okay but when the inning ended, and I started to go back on the field I tripped over a step in the dugout and went down. I was as dizzy as Gillespie. The trainer gave me the look-see and said my pupils were reactive but because I was so dizzy to sit out the rest of the game. Now we were down to nine players. An inning later Frank Pierce, one of our outfielders, is running out a ground ball, trips over first base and face plants with a bloody chin. However, it was worse than that. He went to urgent care, was diagnosed with three broken ribs. His camp is done. Another wimp.
So against medical advice I went back in to play the last two innings. I got another at-bat, hit the ball on the button but right into the second baseman’s glove for an easy 4-6-3 double play. Uecker would have called it ‘tailor made.’ I was dizzy but not dizzy enough not to finish. And as a bonus we actually won our first game 5-3.
Kangaroo court is one of the great traditions of Major League Baseball and fantasy camp is no exception. In the big leagues a player normally serves as judge fining his teammates for transgressions both on and off the field. At fantasy camp fines come from all directions: missed belt loops, wearing the wrong color uniform, two different pairs of socks, forgetting to wear a batting helmet, taking the field without a glove, forgetting how many outs in the inning, throwing your hat at a batted ball, throwing the ball backwards, sideways and every which-way. You get it. It can only happen at fantasy camp. The court judge for this week is Jon Warden, formerly a left-handed pitcher who spent only one year in the bigs, 1968, when the Tigers beat the Cardinals and won the World Series. Warden is proud that he was the only player on either team to never get into a game. “But they let me warm-up twice,” the affable 78-year-old joked. At my other camps, Pirates and Yankees, Steve Blass and Mickey Rivers presided.
In Warden’s court, fines are normally $5. They double if you appeal and lose, which always happens because Warden is also the hearing officer. At this Legends camp, kangaroo court happens between the first and second games of the day in the spacious clubhouse right after lunch. All money raised goes to charity. Catcher Caldwell, who bopped me in the head, was hit with a $10 fine. He should have gotten jail time for assault. Judge Warden kindly gave me a $5 credit to use at my judicial leisure.
We took the field for the second game after lunch and the court session. Riding high on a one game winning streak it didn’t last.
I was encouraged to drink electrolytes, as tasteful as a colonoscopy prep, for the dizzy spells. We were now down to nine, so I played. I went 0-3. Not a good day at the dish or on the head.
We lost our catcher Tim Callihan in the fourth inning from exhaustion. Too many wimps on this team. Catching is probably the most demanding position in camp as pitchers’ arms, if they have any in the first place, are shot by day three. A catcher has to stop more balls behind the plate, coming from every angle, than Marc-Andre Fluery does pucks. It is incredibly demanding. Now down to eight bodies and nobody left on the bench, Heath, who we figured was good enough to back-up Munson could also replace Callihan. Mike didn’t bat but made catching look so effortless. We also ran out of pitchers, so down 6-1 in the sixth inning, Meacham came in to toss. He has 198 career strikeouts. We figured he could handle this bunch. He did. He threw strikes, hardest pitches of the week, but tried to make each throw hittable. It didn’t work. He struck out the side in the sixth and then immediately went into the dugout, called up his Wikipedia page and increased his career strikeout total by three. Even with Heath and Meacham we still got beat 6-3. So much for the winning streak.
When I woke up Friday morning January 17 the dizziness was gone. No matter what anyone tells you, the cure for dizziness is a Ketel One martini, up, extra cold with a twist, the night before at Vero Beach’s hopping Ocean Grill. That was the ticket for me.
Finally, the day promised to be nice and wind free. Overnight our brass was busy on the trade wire and acquired a player on loan from Team 1. We gave up a broken bat, scuffed baseball and an open pack of Big League Chew. T1 was kind enough to part temporarily with an insurance player because they had so many. It was a one-game deal, but enough for us to start with 10 players until second baseman Brian Kurtz pulled himself from the line-up because of a strain on his left side. Kurtz is a wimp, too.
All week my defense and my eye sight was close to stellar. I only made one error the entire camp, a ground ball that jumped over my glove, on dozens of chances. The fact I could see only one baseball and clearly was really a joy for me. In the bottom of the sixth of Friday’s game one, nursing a 2-1 lead and the bases loaded, I picked a ball out of the dirt on a double play to protect the margin. Turns out it wasn’t necessary as we got two in the seventh to win 4-1. We were now 2-4 and had the afternoon free to rest and rehab the aches and pains.
Friday night was the traditional team dinner when the campers and spouses take the coaching staff to dinner. The evenings are casual and a lot of fun. We did get an impassioned plea from captain Duncan about tomorrow’s championship game and to lay it all on the line.
Saturday, January 18 was gorgeous, highs into the 80’s. When we took the field for the title tilt at 10 am it was already 70 degrees and humid. I told the team at our dinner the night before that this was my 15th camp and I’ve played in seven championship games. I also told them I’ve lost all seven. They assured me they would take care of it. Liars.
I woke up early feeling really good. No dizziness, my legs worked and the pain in my ass gone. Barring something that right now is unimaginable I also knew this would be the last organized baseball game I’ll ever play; something I first did in 1960 at eight years old until I got cut from our high school varsity baseball team in ‘68. Coach Jack McDonald couldn’t recognize talent. After the spring of 1968 there was a gap of 42 years before I put on a baseball uniform again—2010 at Pirates Fantasy Camp. I did 14 more over the next 15 years.
But if this was going to be my last one so why not break the seven game championship losing streak?
There was no doubt in the clubhouse and out to the field this one was a little special even though they had beaten us four out of six times already. Somehow we had nine almost healthy bodies. Kurtz, the now ex-wimp, returned. They had 13. We scored a run in the top of the first and should have left town. With no pitching arms, we walked seven in the first two innings and trailed 9-1 in the third. My 0 for 8 championship game record was looking very promising. Four innings later, the scoreboard stopped at 13-2. Simple analysis: they were fairly healthy, we weren’t. They were good, we weren’t.
I had three plate appearances Saturday—I had a hit in the second inning to right center then hit the hardest ball I hit all week in the fourth, an absolute rope, which found 75-year-old right fielder Mike Elmaleh’s glove. He is in great shape, plays softball regularly and it still fairly quick. He moved two steps to his left and the ball landed right in his mitt, purchased two days earlier at Walmart. If he doesn’t grab it the ball rolls all the way back to the right field wall and I’m off to the races. That’s the only redeeming factor—that I didn’t have to run. However, making it tougher to digest, I bought Mike dinner on Thursday night as vets are taught to do for rookies. By snagging my drive he turned out to be a guy with absolutely no conscience.
My third time up I knew would be my last ever, so I savored it a little bit. I requested my walk-up song to be King of the Road and sound engineer Sara Duncan complied. I love Roger Miller’s version and actually was laughing when I stepped up to the plate with the music playing. Third boxcar midnight train, destination Bangor, Maine. In no rush to swing at a pitch, to milk the at-bat, I took as long as I could and worked to a full count. Now I got a little scared of striking out and seeing pitcher Joe Zeleznik forever in a baseball nightmare. The next pitch, I put up the middle for an RBI single. I smiled. A good way to finish.
I left the field a little sentimental but very happy. Not only how I played but ecstatic over my eyesight. That was the sheer joy part of the experience.
I was not only solid in the field but respectable at the plate. My over/under pre-camp number of base hits was 5.5. My goal was six in 20 at-bats. Well, I actually had seven in 17 official at-bats not including the three times I walked. That’s a batting average of .412 and a huge win for not only me but for Dr. Shin’s handiwork.
This 15-year-run has been more fun than a 72-year-old should have. And even though I had a great week this year, both on and off the field, it’s time to take off the baseball knickers and grow up. Time to say good-bye to playing a sport that was my first love. Even more than Lois Blitz in the first grade.
So, that’s it. I passed the eye test and I’m done playing old guy baseball.
At least I think I am.
I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger
Another fun story. I laugh out loud with your "wimp" exclamations. Say hello to my friend, Phil, when you see him later this week.
A great way to go out, Roy; a hit .412 average) and another great blog. You’re a winner in my book!