Part I...Baseball is Baseball
Part II...The Set-up
Part III...Travel
Part IV...Game Day

Part V of The Baseball Fantasy Camp...

The Pros

The staff at camp was ex-pro players with the right temperament and humor to hang with a bunch of wanna-be ball players.  They taught the clinics, coached the teams, and bought a few beverages at the camp pub.

Mark Parent,

A giant catcher who I used to watch play in San Diego in the early 90’s.  Part time starter until a kid named Benito Santiago started throwing people out from his knees.  Parent’s funny, the kind of guy who moons women who wander into the locker room, and will swap Bull Durham lines with you.  

Rich Murray

Coaches Whitey, Beaver and Bocko.  Classic, classy guy; Eddie Murray’s brother.  Some of his quotes from camp:

“How can a guy who's been to six camps still be afraid of catching the ball?” (a guy on the team who refused to play catch).

“Watch this circus.” (as he hits serious pop flies to a team unable to catch.  Supposedly, especially funny when one hit Bocko on the head).

Hey Rich, how’s your brother Eddie doing?"
“OK”. 
Is he healthy?
“The Lord only knows”.   

I’m coaching first base during an afternoon game.  On the adjacent field I hear the crack of a bat.  From where I stand I can see the baseline from second to third and into the outfield, dugouts block the rest of the view.  Knowing Murray’s team is playing there I look over and see the center fielder chase the ball in the right center gap.  A few looong second later, I see, improbably, Weatherby lumber (and I mean lumber like a log cabin in a redwood forest) around second base, chugging…head lowered, gravity-impaired…toward third, a full grin on his pasty face.  Also, impossibly I hear a bellow from Coach Murray; "Put down the landing gear Weatherby".   

Rick Davis

A smooth swinging outfielder for the Dodgers.  Most famous as  the man who walked in front of Kirk Gibson in the World Series before the hobbling fist-pump was made famous and Vin Scully said, “I don’t believe what I just saw.”  Not as funny as the other guys, but a great guy.  He tells a story during a hitting clinic about a coach who raised his average by 20 points simply by moving his head ten degrees upright in his stance. 

Greg Cadaret

In Yankee pinstripes.  Has a sarcastic wit he sharpens on everyone who walks by his locker.  He also spoke more wise words about pitching in the minutes I spent with him than anyone I ever knew save my dad when I was ten years old. 

Shooty Babbit

Street wise smart-ass who was the judge and jury in our daily Kangaroo court.  When we first arrived he was cleaning 400lbs in the weight room.  Small man, big arms.  We have a nice talk at a bar with Shooty on the last night when he sits down with us and tries to rub up against our waitress…talks about everything but baseball; teenage daughters, politics, real estate, friends, life.  He gives us a shout out at the dinner banquet, “Yo, Weatherby Six.  You got something special.  I’m jealous of you guys and admire what you got.  Don’t ever let it go.” 

 Like he had to tell us.

 Hendu

In the dictionary under has the world in the palm of his hands, there’s a greater than even chance that you’ll see Dave Henderson’s face. 

It’s possible you might think other people have more of the world in the palm of their hands.  Gates, some Saudi Prince, Trump, Weatherby- but Gates has to be a geek, Saudi princes have all that sand, Trump has the hair thing, Weatherby is saddled with his friends, but Hendu… Hendu has baseball, and this fantasy camp thing, and he was there. 

In the locker room on day two or so, Hendu looks at the old white slow men gearing up for another day.  Leans over to Whitey and says, “Nice knee brace you sissy…what do you need knee cartilage for anyway …I got rid of mine in 1980…play through it!” 

There’s a guy with the world where he wants it.

My favorite story about Hendu happens the last night at the bar.  He takes off his AL Championship ring he won in 1986 and lets me try it on.  It gets stuck…I can’t get it off (skinny-fingered bastard).  He yells, “Get me a knife!  I’m cuttin’ off Burk’s finger!”  I say, “Can’t we just get some butter and loosen it up?”  He says, “You ain’t puttin’ butter on my ring!  Get me the knife.”

Funny stuff.