La Vie en Rose

Post game handshake - a rare win for Team A

It was a wonderful week in Fort Myers for my seventh trip to the Ponce de Leon winter baseball camp.  The weather was great -- 80 degrees and sunny most days, a slight sprinkle Thursday morning and a cool wind on Friday -- but the snow, ice and freezing temperatures were left up north. As discouraging as our play was for the week -- we ended up 2 wins and 7 losses -- it is sweet to be in Florida in the dead of winter playing baseball and renewing friendships and making new friends.  As Jackie pointed out, Willie Stargell hit the nail on the head when he said, "No one ever said, 'Work Ball!'  They say, 'Play Ball!'  To me that means having fun."  Couldn't agree more.

In my first three years at this camp the collective record of my teams was 1-26; the next three years the record was 23-4.  I was hoping that this year I would get over .500 but instead now have a cumulative record of 26 wins and 37 losses.  So I'll just have to come back at least two more years and pretty much run the table to get over .500.  Steve Liddle says each year that "it is true at every level of baseball from the little leagues to the big leagues that teams that can throw strikes and catch the ball usually win."  And that was particularly true for us this week.  We had several capable and versatile fielders -- particularly Jamie Bell, Ed Confino, Tom Grubbs, Chris Clark and Joe Cardi -- but when they were sitting out or pitching or catching our overall ability to make plays suffered.  At the beginning of the week 8 players on the team said they played first base and 5 said they played second -- unfortunately only one person can play those positions at a time and, of course, the ball gets hit to other parts of the field.  So while I believe our overall pitching matched the level of pitching from most of the other teams, when the ball was put into play our defense too often didn't measure up.  While most of our games were competitive, we didn't have enough timely hitting or efficient fielding to win. 

Jay Hedlund and Flint Taylor - Brown Baseball- Class of '68

It was great to have Bill here with me again this year -- conversations about baseball well into the night, tips for my play, observations on the games and general catching up is terrific in the relaxed atmosphere of a baseball week.  An extra highlight was having Flint Taylor here -- he is to blame for me doing the blog in the first place, and there is no more ardent Red Sox fan - and a wonderful friend.  Flint only saw one game -- on Tuesday morning -- and it was one of our two wins for the week.  We should have kept him around for the whole week!


The coaches are unbelievably gracious and accommodating - both during the week and after the camp is over.   The coaches to a man say that what keeps them coming back is that everyone is here for the love of the game of baseball.  They tell us, "you guys want to learn and get better and you listen to us.  Too often during the year we are working with young, talented players who don't want to listen."  The coaches encourage campers to reach out to them whenever they are in the same city as the coach and his team.  Last summer, when he was managing the Red Sox Class AAA Pawtucket, Rhode Island team, Arnie Beyeler very generously gave me and my nephew and two great-nephews a pre-game tour of the PawSox clubhouse, workout room, managers office, batting cage and dugout -- where Nick and Chris, age 10 and 8 got to meet several of the players (and "shake Iglesias' hand!")  It was a wonderful gift from Arnie, and the boys (and their great-uncle!) were thrilled.  It was typical of the openness that Arnie and the other coaches have with the campers.

I was pleased with how I did physically all week with one exception.  My arm and shoulder were strong and flexible so I was able to pitch every day.  My hamstrings and quads tightened some but stretching throughout each day -- on top of my winter workouts -- and some Atomic Balm kept my legs and back feeling the best they have been for any of the 7 camps I have attended.  Even no blisters on my feet -- usually an annual occurrence.  The one exception was increasing pain and swelling in my right knee as the week went on.  I have some arthritis and cartilage and ligament damage in the inside part of the knee and had a cortisone shot for it last October.  As the week went on the pounding on the hard infield surface of our fields when I ran made the knee flare up quite badly.  Aleeve, stretching and ice helped only marginally.   It severely restricted what I call "my running" although it didn't bother me much while pitching or batting.  By Thursday I was using a pinch runner when I got on base - one of the liberal rules to accommodate the infirmities of the players.  I will have to have the knee looked at again by my orthopedist.

A couple of quick notes:  Don Buford was not at the camp this year -- last October he was appointed by Major League Baseball to manage the MLB Urban Youth Academy in Compton, California.  Floyd Rayford, a seven year major league catcher and third baseman -- mostly with the Orioles -- took over Don's post in the batting cages.

Floyd each year also conducts a terrific practice with the camp's catchers.  About 8 to 10 catchers went with Floyd to the middle of the field where he would hit them high (50 feet or more) pop flies directly over their heads for them to try to catch.  He is a magician with his "fungo" bat and can make the ball drift left, right, front, or back much like the foul balls catchers need to catch in a game.  (You don't see pop flies that high in a Ponce game.)  The catchers each had 10 or more chances and did quite well - with one of our catchers, Jeff Raymond, among the most successful.  I agree with an observation of one of my teammates that this was the most talented group of catchers at the camp since I started attending.

The pictures in this blog are courtesy of Flint Taylor.  If you would like to see more pictures of the week's activities you can go to the website of Greg Wagner, the professional photographer who covers the camp.  He estimates that he took 3-4,000 photos during the week.  The results are at:  www.wagnerphotography.com. Look for pictures for the Ponce de Leon week, and Team A.

Jackie Howell, who has posted some wonderful comments to the postings this week, writes the best baseball blog that I read, and which I recommend -- "Baseball, Yoga, Life.... (and me) the bliss of stillness & the game." You can find it at:  baseballzen9.wordpress.com.

Bill Lee said that he was there to give advice and condolences for the week -- and added, "the only advice I can give you is don't lose your day jobs!"

Arnie Beyeler said that his last name is pronounced "Baylor, like my cousin Don."

A foreign correspondent writes, "Overall the whole week reminded me of the hapless but lovable 1962 Mets.  And I found you to be something of a combination of Gus Bell and Roger Craig, a good hitter and a good pitcher, who some (not me, of course) would say were in the twilight of their careers."  As Victor Kosmo used to say, "it is better to be a has been than a never was."  (And hello to the Hedlunds AND Wetekams of Canada.)

Flint talked about the radar gun on my pitches showing a speed reading that matches the temperatures this week in Chicago.  A while back I told a younger friend who I work out with that my goal as a pitcher is to throw the ball at a speed to match my age -- he said, "what's that, 93?"  Let's just say that the speed of my "fast ball" is somewhere between that and the winter temp in Chicago.

While at Ponce camp there is a lot of discussion about plans for the coming seasons back home -- games start the first week of April.  Campers also talk about the other tournaments they have been to or plan to attend -- for example the Men's Senior Baseball League tournament in Arizona, Roy Hobbs tournament in November in Fort Myers (I was part of that one last year), the Legends Tournament in Cooperstown in September (Chris Clark, John Fernstrom and Joe Cardi have played there in the past and I hope to this year) and an International tournament in Florida held in mid-January.  Last year I played 59 games in a variety of seasons and tournaments -- and hope to add one or more of those tournaments to my regular schedule this year.  As someone once said, "Baseball is a disease that old age can't cure."

Jay and Bill Hedlund with Ted Williams

Last March, Bill retired after running the Parks and Recreation Department for 41 years in our hometown of Braintree, MA.  In April he started as an usher at Fenway Park!  "Living the dream!" he says -- getting paid to be at 80 Red Sox games during the season.  A nice connection this week was the chance for him to get to know Red Sox Coaches Arnie Beyeler and Victor Rodriguez who have been promoted to the major league team this year.  Bill sat with them for a while in the lobby of the hotel on Thursday and talked Red Sox -- among tidbits:  Jackie Bradley Jr., the 22 year-old outfield prospect, has all the tools and should hit for power; Xander Bogaerts, the 20 year-old minor league shortstop,  is the "real deal"; Travis Shaw, a big left-handed hitting first and third baseman, is a prospect to keep your eye on.  Both Arnie and Victor have told Bill to say hey to them when he sees them at Fenway in the upcoming season.  Camp is great fun for me -- and all the more to share the time with Bill.  We have been going to baseball games together for more than 60 years -- and we still saw some things this week that we had never seen before!

Pitchers and catchers report in two weeks!  Keep your Sox on! 

Extraneous Note:  La Vie en Rose is one of the all time great songs (yes, Mike, even though it is in French.)  There are many great covers of the song, but I think one of Elizabeth's favorites, and mine, is by Charles Aznavour, who is still singing at the age of 88.  Not bad for a geezer.  

Humility

At bat in Ponce de Leon game in Fort Myers, FL

Humility quickly follows hubris, and that's true today.  A quick report on the fading Team A - we lost our final game to Team F (managed by Arnie Beyeler) by a score of 5 to 4.  After beating Team F twice earlier in the week (our only wins of the week) we lost to them on Thursday ending the game with the tying run on second base.  Today, we fell behind early but Adrian Rosati held Team F in check and we slowly caught up.  Going into our final at bat we were losing 5 to 3 -- we scored one and had the tying run on third and the winning run on second.  However, with two outs, a ground ball was scooped by the third baseman and his throw was dug out of the dirt by the first baseman, ending the game.  So we beat Team F twice and they beat us twice, so we ended with identical 2-7 records and a draw in the four games between us.  I like to think we weren't in last place, but rather tied for fifth.  I pitched two innings, allowing 4 runs and striking out two, and hit one batter; at bat I was 1 for 2 with a walk.  (Victor Rodriguez' Team E won the championship in the main stadium.)

So from big hopes at the beginning of the week we fell far short of expectations. We were competitive in most games but a lack of timely hitting (leaving too many runners on base) and, particularly, weak fielding meant we too often frittered away chances to win.  It was a wonderful week of baseball, great weather and wonderful stories -- but it is always better when you win.

An interesting experience today while I was pitching:  my catcher was on base at the end of the previous inning so had to don his catching gear while I waited on the mound to warm up.  Former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee told me to throw my warm up pitches to him as he stepped into the batters box with a bat and he would hit them back to me.  I threw about 10-12 warm ups with Bill tapping them right back to me (like a game of pepper!)  I never saw anyone warm up like that before.  So this week I twice took batting practice with Bill pitching to me and today I pitched to him -- great fun for someone who saw him play so often in Fenway Park in the 1970s.

A couple of quick notes:  My brother Bill and I drove up to Tampa after the game to visit with Bill's son, Ben, and Ben's wife Cristina and son Evan.  On Saturday we take our flights north.  I will post my final thoughts on the week over the weekend once I'm back in DC.

Bill brought the new book by Tito Francona written with Dan Shaughnessy to read during lulls in the "action" during the games -- so he finished it in no time!  He thought it was a very interesting and engaging book with many insights to internal workings of the team.  He recommends it.

For the week I was 9-16 at bat with 5 walks.  I pitched all five days for a total of 13 innings -- and was very surprised that my arm felt as good at the end of the week as it did in the beginning.  It was much more pitching than I have done at Ponce camp in the past -- or, in fact, than I have done in 45 years -- and I was pleased, in general, with how I did.  I am sure that my winter workouts and throwing regimen were instrumental to having the strength to throw each day and to the improvement in my control and results.

Photos attached to the blog (except the one on Sunday) were taken by Flint Taylor, aka Leo Kiely.

More this weekend.