Al's Big Red Machine

 For most of my youth baseball and high school career, I played second base and always had a talent for turning double plays. It isn't an easy play for a second baseman in that you first have to get to the base, then position your feet quickly to receive the throw and pivot to make as hard and accurate of a throw possible to first base before the batter gets there. After 40 years, I turned my first double play in the first game and then turned three more during the week for a total of four. My first baseman said my throws were getting there with some speed and that was music to my ears.

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.

Santa Claus has has come and gone, but not before dropping off lots of goodies colored in red and black, just in time for the 2022 Reds Fantasy Camp, now just 20 days away. Couldn't have shown up at Fantasy Camp without my very own custom Maple bat, complete with personalized engraving to commemorate the experience. And much to my surprise, the bat needed a special backpack home to replace my "ole skewl" 1990s horizontal bag, now scoffed at as a relic of my old softball playing days.  Santa Claus completed his delivery with black sweat pants, long-sleeve red undershirts. Even my prescription sports sun goggles have a stylish red head band. So, at least on the fashion front, I'm ready to go!

 As our Reds Fantasy camp approaches fast, now just 60 days away, thanks to a steady Saturday morning regimen of practices, I'm feeling confident with the hitting stroke and the ability to field both ground balls and fly balls. We don't know what type of pitching awaits us, but we've prepared as well as three professionals can. Of course, we'll continue to intensify our once a week practices throughout the Holidays, but our flights are booked to Phoenix to be a part of Reds baseball heaven.

We took a break from our practice ritual this weekend and I surprised my wife with Brad Paisley concert tickets at the IThink Amphitheater in West Palm Beach. Not only did we take in a great concert by Paisley, who is also a staunch American Patriot, but the crowd got an unexpected surprise when Paisley brought on stage one of the greatest Cincinnati Reds players to ever the play the game. Hall of Famer Johnny Bench graced the stage. It was the last thing I expected, but a great "value add" to an already terrific experience.

Joining me at the Cincinnati Reds fantasy camp is Miami cardiologist Gilbert Concepcion, a lifelong New York Yankees fan. Given his revered last name in Reds baseball land, Concepcion, of Cuban heritage, spent most of his professional life fielding questions from his Miami patients wanting to know if he had any family tie to the great Big Red Machine shortstop Dave Concepcion, a native of Venezuela. He didn’t give much thought to the Concepcion name connection and was planning to wear his old high school number 10 at the Reds fantasy camp. That is until he was recently looking through some of his childhood photographs at his parent’s home and realized that he wore the number 13 on a Little League baseball team. That discovery also perked another special memory.  As a physician, he was asked by the Venezuelan national baseball team physician to step in as onsite physician for the Venezuelan national team during the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006 because the former was fe...

During the 10+ years that I sponsored and managed one of the first bonafide travel baseball teams in South Florida between 1998 and 2009, my South Florida Raptors team played in numerous competitive tournaments throughout the Southeast and nationally. Just before a playoff game against a team from Jupiter, Florida at the Florida Marlins Spring Training facility in the same city, I noticed the starting pitcher we would face was named Jack Armstrong, Jr. While my Reds' passion was primarily for the Big Red Machine of the 1970s, I still followed the 1990s championship team and was well aware of the role a pitcher named Jack Armstrong played on those great teams with Hall of Famers like Barry Larkin. I started to look around both sides of the field until I spotted a an athletic man wearing dark sunglasses with a towel around his neck standing by himself against the fence far down the baseline by himself. I was busy preparing my team, but I kept peering that way until it registered tha...

When I suit up for the Cincinnati Reds Fantasy Camp in January, I will proudly wear the number "14" in honor of  Pete Rose, one of the game's most inspirational players and the all-time leader in hits with 4,256. "Mr. Hustle" always gave it 100%. A fierce competitor, Rose played baseball with a tremendous passion and never quit hustling regardless of the score in a game. For me, like the famous line in the Disney movie "Remember The Titans" says, "you're Hall of Fame in my book." Coincidentally, one of Rose's most memorable career moments came on April 29 (my birthday), when in 1978 for the only time in his career he hit three home runs in the same game. I celebrated a 60th April 29 yesterday and that milestone was one of the primary drivers in my registering for the Reds Fantasy Camp, so I'm honored to be wearing "14".   

As a tween and teenager when I wasn't chasing pretty girls, you could be sure to find me on a baseball field or in a batting cage. I could play, watch my friends play on their teams and practice baseball for hours. You see me and my best friend Jorge Martinez dreamed of playing in the Big Leagues one day. We spent countless hours perfecting our swings at the batting cages at Carol City High School, breaking only to take some sips of water from a nearby water fountain. And when our hands started blistering, we'd sit down on the clay floor and fantasize about hitting back to back on the Big Red Machine one day. For most of our varsity years, we played on rival neighborhood high school teams. He, on the juggernaut Carol City Chiefs, loaded with talent and heritage and I on the upstart, new American High Patriots. While on the field we were fierce competitors, off the diamond, we were the best of the best friends. The kind of friends that at 14, knew we would be the godfathers of e...

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...

One of the perks from participating in the Cincinnati Reds Fantasy baseball camp next year was to automatically become a member of the Reds Hall of Fame Museum, where all of my childhood immortal Reds legends will live forever in time.  While, unfairly in my view, not eligible for the MLB Hall of Fame, baseball's all time hit leader Pete Rose was the sole inductee in the Class of 2016 Reds Hall of Fame. Rightfully taking his place among Reds legends, "Charley Hustle" recorded 4,192 hits during his career, breaking the legendary Ty Cobb's previous record for most all time career hits. He changed the game of baseball forever with his signature head first diving slides into bases and his intensity, running out every ball he hit no matter if he appeared to be thrown out easily by a fielder.  His lust for winning had no boundaries, even in typically ceremonial MLB All Star games, when superstars usually just showed up for the fans.  Not Rose. He played to win and in the 19...

All of us have that childhood teacher that stood out, left a lifetime impression on us. It's no coincidence that mine was Ms. Knudsen, my 4th grade teacher at South Hialeah Elementary in 1970. You see Ms. Knudsen knew I was a big baseball fan and a little boy who was passionate about his favorite team, the Cincinnati Reds. It's practically all I talked about during show and tell time in class. I was also a good student, completed my work on time and was always very respectful. In mid October that year after watching the Baltimore Orioles go up on my Reds 2-0 over the weekend in the World Series, I returned to school on Monday, pleading with Ms. Knudsen to let me hear the Series on my transistor AM-FM radio when it resumed Tuesday afternoon during school hours. Ms. Knudsen made a deal with me, that not only could I not refuse, but was eager to make good on. She told me if I finished my classwork on time, without recklessly rushing through it, she would let me sit next to her wi...

My first non coaching "baseball practice" in more than 35 years was one to remember. Like the first day of class in elementary school, I was excited, anticipating the adrenalin rush of catching and hitting a baseball again. I made sure to do a little extra mobility and stretching in the gym the day before and even simulated the throwing and swinging motions in order to wake up those muscle fibers that had been dormant for years. Since the workout was at Cincinnati Reds slugger Nick Castellanos' property, I invited my son and surprised my 18-year-old nephew, a high school pitcher, to join me and get an opportunity meet Nick. After some initial stretching, Nick set up a machine to vault some fly balls our way. My confidence level was teetering as I didn't know how well I'd track the fly balls, given that I was wearing progressive, prescription eyeglasses. Castellanos Sr. and I took turns fielding the fly balls. When I heard the thump of the baseball pop out of the m...

I was 5 years old when I discovered the Cincinnati Reds . That special summer day in 1966 at Dodgers stadium in Los Angeles, I didn't even know how to pronounce Cincinnati, but sitting high atop the upper deck stands, I saw a very active group of red "circles" constantly moving from base to base, much to the disappointment of so many people seated around me dressed in blue.  I  didn't know the names of the players, but my dad and uncle seated on either side of me provided all of the narration I needed. I naively called the more active team the Reds, solely because of the color I saw on the tops of their caps. I remember asking my dad why the people around us didn't cheer when the red "circles" ran around the bases. He smiled and said "that's because they want the "Blues" to win. But on that 16th day of August, not even the great Sandy Koufax could stop the red "circles" from recording a 5 to 1 win. And while my uncle was exci...

When I decided to fulfill a lifetime bucket list experience to play baseball again in the Big League uniform of my childhood favorite Cincinnati Reds team, my immediate thought was to recruit guys I grew up playing the game with to join me. What a better way to relive my most cherished memories than with the actual guys I played with at the youth and high school level. One of the first guys I reached out to was a late 70s high school teammate (the Casanova pictured left) named Jorge Castellanos. At 15, it was all about the girls, but today not only is Jorge one of the top pulmonologists in South Florida, but also happens to be the father of young Reds superstar, Nick Castellanos (pictured below), who attended high school with my son Michael  After speaking to Nick over the Christmas Holidays about the idea, I was pretty confident that I'd secure my first recruit. I was right. I continued to excitedly call, text, email many other prior teammates. To my surprise, not everyone was a ...