I had a hard time sleeping during the night. Constantly rolling over woke me up often with the pain in my thigh, I only got about 4 hours sleep. At 6:30am we again boarded the bus and Ed took us to the training camp facility. It was still wet outside but only overcast, no rain. I had a little breakfast then got dressed in my white home uniform. I was having such a great time at camp during the two days and we had not even played a game yet. After I got my uniform on, I was so excited about playing that I wandered around the clubhouse and outside about ten times. I asked Bobby Wine about the Wikipedia mention of him pulling a hidden ball trick on Willie Mays. He laughed and said "I don't remember it. Many have said I did but I don't remember it". We had a brief morning meeting then hit the fields for stretching/warm ups and game one of three today.

Home uniform

Our team, Mack's Smashers, played good defense while scoring 9 runs to win 9-4. I played left field and didn't have anything hit to me except a ball down the line that I had to run after near the warning track. My thigh was not happy after that. I kept stretching my legs which seemed to temporarily help. My first at bat I broke the bat while hitting a soft liner off the pitcher's chest, he quickly recovered and threw me out at first. My second time up I hit a weak grounder that ended up forcing out a runner to end that inning. My third at bat I hit a bloop over the pitcher's head, the infielders tried to get another runner and failed, giving me a cheap hit and two RBI's somehow. The weather was great, the sun shining and warm.

Celebrating a team win

GAME #2

Game 2 was against my friend Phil's team, they went on to win the camp championship and had no problem with us. Their star pitcher was 5-0! I don't think I faced him luckily. We lost the game by three runs. We were not blown out but mistakes cost us. One at bat I hit a pop fly over the first baseman's head but he timed his leap perfectly to rob me of a hit. Another at bat was against my friend Phil Forman on the mound. I foolishly took a called third strike. The umpires will call anything close a strike and I should have been swinging away. It was my only strikeout of the week. I was hoping Phil would hit something to me in left so I could get him out but he won the battle. The weather went from sunshine to gray clouds to rain for a half inning. I made a couple good catches of fly balls that brought me nice comments from Phil and my teammates. But as with the first game, a ball hit down the line that had to be retrieved at the warning track made my sore left quad bark at me some more.

Swinging away in game two

I was able to get under this one, use two hands, and squeeze it for an out

Lunch

We headed to the big tent for a pasta lunch. I ate so well this week, the breakfast and lunch buffets were tremendous. Afterwards I did something I swore I would not do - go to the trainer's room. One of the trainers stretched my legs then wrapped my left thigh in an ace bandage. This helped tremendously yet I could still feel pain. It turned out to become a problem the next day as the wrap kinda rubbed me the wrong way and I ended up with a "road rash" type of injury that hampered me the next day. I put on my blue road uniform and headed to game #3.

Road uniform

GAME #3

The weather was nice and sunny for this game. We unfortunately did not win, taking our record to 1-2. I again played left field and luckily there were no balls hit past me this time. But one pop fly was hit into shallow left behind third base, I rushed in to attempt a catch but came up short. This did not make my thigh feel very well. However my at bats were good. My first time up to the plate I lofted a pitch over the infielders and into left field for a hit. I did the same thing in my second at bat, getting another ball into left field. Then my third at bat I hit a base hit to right field for a 3 for 3 game. All three hits were off of a real good pitcher who I also found out was a rock and roller, catching him wearing a Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin shirt and a David Gilmour of Pink Floyd shirt. When we talked at lunch the next day he told me he had seen the original Pink Floyd - The Wall shows in 1980 as had I. He saw one of the shows in New York, I had been to one of the shows in Los Angeles. Like me, he said it was one show he would never forget. I ended the day with 4 hits in 9 at bats, not bad for a triple header day. While returning to the clubhouse Mets great infielder and hitter Felix Milian asked me how I did. I replied "3 for 3" and he smiled and gave me a fist bump. That was cool to get from the guy who held the Mets record for most hits in a season for many years.

3 for 3 but David Wright I am not

After the third game I sat at my locker slowly taking off my uniform. Next to me was Mets great Al Jackson doing the same. We each enjoyed a cold Budweiser sitting on our stools in front of our lockers. Our discussion led to being blessed to be where we are and we also swapped stories about grandchildren. I was able to show off the cute little picture of Adalyn from the 4th of July parade last year. This was one of my most favorite moments during the week, just sitting at my locker in my half uniform talking to such a great person and having a beer.

Al Jackson

Adalyn

BBQ Dinner/Former Player Bull Session

That night with everyone exhausted from the tripleheader, we enjoyed a wonderful BBQ dinner. I had a Meat Coma plate special with wings, chicken, sausage, brisket and some ribs. With all the campers sitting at round tables throughout the meeting tent, the pros were at the head table up front. Campers were able to ask questions of all the pros and it was a very interesting evening. Some of the older players had stories about Gil Hodges while Tim Tuffel talked about Davey Johnson's leadership in 1986. Joe Pignatano, who coached with Casey Stengel, had some funny stories about Casey's managing. Also during the evening Doug Dickey raffled off some nice autographed Mets memorabilia from the current players. Unfortunately I did not possess the winning tickets to obtain such merchandise. I just soaked it all in as I was sitting at one of the front tables. I couldn't come up with a relevant question as the meat coma was starting to take effect. I did catch up to Duffy Dyer afterwards and asked him this: "Since you played on both teams, which was more surprising to you, the 1969 team going from laughing stock to World's Champions or the 1973 team going from last place to first place in September, beating the Reds for the National League pennant, and taking the Oakland A's to game 7 in the World Series?" Duffy said he preferred the 1969 team because it was his rookie year and it was a bit more magical than the '73 team that only won 81 games but captured the NL pennant. It was a great night and I went to bed unable to update my website due the kicking in of the meat coma.