Shoveling to Sunshine

It was a strange morning, it started with waking up at 4:00am to get ready to head out the airport, but I had one last thing to do before finding my way to MSP.   I had to shovel.  Evidently the strange weather last night including raining….of all things among this cold weather season was it was raining last night – so in the anticipation of below zero degree weather for the next 96 hours (at around 5pm Saturday Minnesota time) – I decided I should quickly grab the shovel  and push around the icy snow that gathered up on the driveway – with that accomplished it was on to the airport – the weather was actually about 30 degrees outside (thank goodness as the drive would have been awful) – when I left for Fort Myers in 2010 it was -12 – I sort of feel guilty leaving Minnesota and the wife and two boys have to deal with the coldest weather MN has seen in 20 years – ok maybe not that guilty.  Today’s forecast in Ft Myers includes sun and about 70 – sure guilt removed.

The plan today is to head over to Fort Myers Beach and grab lunch on the ocean – then we will head over to the hotel to check in and await the opening night banquet.  The first night is always fun to hear the stories from the “rookies” and how they found the camp or just a little about themselves.   This year will be very hard to keep track of everyone – an expected 120+ campers will be here this week playing some baseball.

Tomorrow we will get some warm ups going and baseball drills – including infield, outfield, hitting, pitching, catching, & baserunning tips from the Pro’s!   The key to all of this is just getting by each day without any injuries.   The rookies will take the fields in the afternoon to get some kinks out and get some real game action going – some veterans (returning campers) will be mixed into those games to fill out the missing pieces.  The Pro Staff (The Legends – as they are referred to on the camp website) will be walking around taking notes to see who is good, who can play certain positions and quite frankly – who will be chosen in the last round!  J

Sunday evening is a fun night – after the Pro Staff draft the team – the teams will be announced – an exciting time and generally speaking – thoughts of championships are in the air as you greet your teammates and thinking about how much we are going to dominate (much like the evening after you draft your fantasy football – which of course is going to dominate…..) – always interesting to see the mix of players for each team and this blogger in the past has attempted to break down each team and size up the positives and negatives of each squad!!

Looking forward to a great week – sunshine and baseball…..it’s here!

~~ "You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra ~~