Mets Fantasy Camp a top 100 sporting event?
I just returned today from a week at Mets baseball fantasy camp in Port St. Lucie, Florida. It was an amazing experience to play with the old time Amazins! Ron Swoboda, Willie Montanez, Ed Kranepool, and John Sterns were just a few of the former players in camp. I really didn’t know what to expect with my trip down to Florida. My wife surprised me back in April, before the economy tanked I might add, with the birthday present of a lifetime. All I knew was that I was going to get to play a week of baseball games on some really nice fields at the official Mets spring training facility. What could be better then baseball in the Florida sun? I was thinking to myself could a fantasy camp even be considered for a top 10 sporting event list or even my own top 100 sporting events you must see live list? It might be a hard sell to the general public but that didn’t stop me from attending this special sporting event to live out my childhood dreams of wearing the Mets uniform.
I was lucky enough to get put with a great roommate to start. We more or less had the same attitude as as we were both just happy to be playing baseball away from the freezing cold weather in the northeast. The reason I say this is that there were more then a few dopes who treated fantasy camp like some major sporting event or the World Series. Like most in camp my roommate and I were more interested in drinking beers and taking some hacks at the plate. We were laughing that some of these guys really got into the whole thing. Even some of the old timers who were managing were taking it very seriously, although I think they had money riding on the games so at least they had good reason. This and of course they were getting paid for their services during the week. Some like Sterns i dont think know any other way.
It turned out I got picked for Ron Swoboda and Anthony Young’s team. They managed the team with help from coach Baez and coach Paruse, who funny enough I had played with both twenty years earlier at Rich Martins’s baseball camp in New Jersey. Baez ended up playing for the Mets and I ended up playing for the Mets fantasy camp team. I guess we took different paths to get to wear that Mets uniform but we both made it. Both of them are great guys and still offer baseball instruction in New York during the year.
As for the team we started off slow with two loses but came back to win our next four out of five and finished in a respectable third place. I had a blast spending time with the guys on my team and listening to the coaches stories and advice. I even got to pitch a few games. I wasn’t expecting to pitch since I hadn’t done so since little league. I ended up giving up a ton of runs but came away with a record of 2-0. The highlight of my camp though came the last day when the pros play all the campers in a series of 3 inning games. These games were played on the beautiful Tradition Field. I got a chance to face Pete Schourek after watching him mow down just about everyone before me. Walking up to the plate I was thinking now it’s my turn to look stupid. Then I heard Swoboda and Baez yelling at me to go up there and hit the ball. I started focusing on all the advice they had given me on hitting earlier in the week. How to analyze the pitcher and what to expect in certain situations. It helped me relax a little. I figured Schourek would just get the first pitch in for a strike so i went up thinking that that pitch would be the only one I would have a chance at. It worked because he threw me a 75 mile hour fastball right over the plate nice and straight like it comes out at the batting cage I use at home. I smacked a double to left and received a nice ovation from the crowd of a few hundred. It was an incredible way to end my week. While I can’t say this week might rival the experience for many of the top sporting events like the Super Bowl or Masters it certainly made my own personal top ten sporting event list.
