So the annual baseball adventure begins again, this year is the earliest date on the calendar, I get so many responses of, "Why so early?" -- my standard response is this group of fantasy campers need to be in and out of the facility before the "real" ballplayers are here. I chuckle at how many folks think we play during the spring training schedule (which for this year - they report to camp on Feb 12th!) so seriously.....but this year our reporting date is January 5th for our first workout. Now some campers started their workout earlier than Jan 5th (generally with some 12 oz curls or 1 oz neck rolls) but we will put on the Twins jersey and hop on the fields where professionals will be getting ready for the grind of the long season in about 5 weeks.
The competition I noted in the title of my blog is of course we meet new campers every year (generally because they are rookies) and this guy, his name is Matt. Matt is from Montana. Matt retired as a school teacher at a private catholic school (I am presuming last year). His camp was given to him as a gift -- now of course I said, well that was nice of your wife to do this....well he quickly correctly me. It was a gift from his colleagues, families, and friends from the school as a "retirement" (thank you for all your hard work) gift. What!?! That was a big surprise. He mentioned to me that over 60 people contributed to the cause to get him here in Ft Myers and they could not be more happy to send him here. Another great story - I did here him say he is going to write a blog.....so hence the rumor of competition.....all kidding aside, I can't wait to see what he is posting and enjoy hearing of all the adventures the other campers have -- so I will get his blog site and post it on here as well.
This year I will try to get timely posts up with updated standings and game recaps - I know they have gotten shorter over the years (which I think to many readers is a plus....).
This year will be another wrinkle -- 10 teams -- maybe 125 guys (update 121 campers, of which we have at least 4 gals/ladies/women here) -- a larger camp than normal -- I heard rumbles of many guys cancelling late (usually do to work commitments or injuries) so we might only have 12 (or 13) to a team -- so things will be interesting -- the larger roster is good for taking a few innings off, pitching depth, and if someone gets injured --- but less AB's since it is hard to turn over a lineup with 14 or 15 guys in it -- so that is the new information and new pro staff members this year including: Eddie Guardado, Glen Perkins, Mark Salas, and Toby Gardenhire.
We start with workouts tomorrow, I may have to hit up the pool and get a little more sun today.....just like yesterday's sunny and 84. (and when I say a little sun, I mean like 10 mins of it, this pale skin can't take the FL sun)
~~ "You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra ~~
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