Al's Big Red Machine

On my last at bat in the first game of the week at Reds camp, I got the sweet taste of belting out my first hit in an official baseball game in more than 40 years. I followed that up later that afternoon with a bases-loaded double over the center fielder's head. In baseball prose, I crushed the ball and it felt really good. So much so, that I gave the dugout a flex pose while proudly standing on second base. It was my first of three doubles and 9 hits for the week. I would have love to get a few more hits, but had several of hard hit balls go right at a fielder. Nevertheless, after a year of intensive batting practice to get ready, it felt great that my preparation enabled me to produce at the plate after 40 years of baseball dormant.

Day 1 at the Reds Fantasy Camp was a blast and a wakeup call on how grueling the life of a professional ballplayer is. After getting to the complex before sunrise to have breakfast, attend a morning briefing meeting, we headed out to the fields to begin our "tryout" so the coaches could evaluate us before the draft during our lunch. More than 45 minutes of infield practice, three different live batting sessions on multiple fields, bullpen pitching tosses and fly balls off the machine was enough to send me to the training room for a massage gun session on the quads. We finally learned draft results and my team for the week was appropriately Goodyear, home of the Reds spring training facility. We faced a crafty veteran pitcher who threw knuckleballs, curveballs and sidearm fastballs. On my third at bat, I finally got a hold of one and lined a single down the left field line. It felt great! Especially since I had already turned a double play as the starting second basemen. Lots

Great start to Reds Fantasy Camp week with a meet the professionals reception and dinner, during which they asked all rookie campers to provide brief introductions of themselves. Very cool conversations ensued with Commissioner and Big Red Machine players Doug Flynn and Jim Maloney. I was one of 33 first-time participants and my trio were the only guys from Florida.  

These last few days before boarding the flight to Phoenix for a unique experience to play baseball for a week in a Cincinnati Reds uniform at its annual Fantasy Camp event have seemed to drag, surely because the anticipation has been gnawing at me. Some swim, cycle and short run workouts have helped ease the anxiety, but I'm still feeling like a 12-year-old awaiting the first day of middle school. I've watched videos of prior Fantasy Camps almost every day, desperately trying to mentally "transport" myself  and anticipate what is to come. I guess at 60, I'm again feeling the exuberance I felt before playing in my very first organized youth league game. The difference is I'm not sleeping in wool uniform pants the night before the game. 

I n Las Vegas, they were calling it the luckiest day of the century. It was the 7th day of the 7th month of the 77th year of the 19th century (7/7/77). I was a 16-year-old high school baseball player, excited to have been invited to play with some of the best players in Miami Dade County on an American Legion summer baseball team.  But my "lucky 7" good fortune would come years later, as that day would forever imprint a not so lucky experience in my life. It was a sunny Thursday afternoon in South Florida and we were playing a star-studded Legion team from Hialeah at Miami Stadium, then Spring Training home of the Baltimore Orioles. Like my teammates, I was excited to play on the grounds where the greats, Brooks and Frank Robinson played. With a runner on first base and one out, I was looking to turn a double play on any ground ball hit to the infield. The batter was Nick Esasky, who just two years later, would become a first round draft pick by the Cincinnati Reds. Esasky hi

I've always been a believer in that your future is often shaped by the people, interactions and experiences that personally inspired you at different points in your life. As such, I asked and received confirmation from camp administrators that I could affix personal photos on the inside panel of my assigned locker for the week. It's hard to pick a few photos from a 50-year reservoir of treasured baseball images, but I'll travel with a slice of childhood and adult memories that will make up my "vision board". Unlike traditional vision boards which focus on what you want the future to look like, my goal is to have the memories that my images invoke inspire me to relish, enjoy and play the game I love with the passion of a little boy who dreamed of some day playing for The Big Red Machine.