Al's Big Red Machine Blog

Welcome to Al's Big Red Machine Blog and follow my journey as I fulfill a lifelong bucket list experience at age 60 to play baseball as a Cincinnati Reds player.


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Livin' the Dream at Reds Fantasy Camp

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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 ...
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A Childhood Legend Becomes Reds Royalty

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The "Big Red Machine" of the 1970s was baseball royalty for me. So when my childhood neighbor, whom I admired and bragged about his baseball prowess, was drafted out of high school in 1978 by the Reds, my connection to the iconic franchise grew stronger. Nick Esasky was the talk of Carol Park, a small but exciting ballpark in Carol City in the northern area of Miami Dade County. I hung out a lot at Carol Park as a teen, as it was the epicenter of youth baseball in Carol City, whose high school Chiefs baseball team, also produced major league players Randy Bush, Danny Tartabull and Otis Green. The park had a very tall chainlink fence in left field to protect homes from being pelted with errantly-thrown baseballs. There were only a few 15-year-olds in the Little League program who could boast hitting long balls against that towering Fenway Park-like fence. And that's why Nick, a manchild with Big League prowess, was a Carol Park legend for me and many of my Sandlot buddie...
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Getting Things Started At Fantasy Camp

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.  
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