Fantasy Camp Games

I have a lot of reading to do for school tomorrow so I decided it was the perfect time to summarize my time at the Fantasy Camp Games yesterday.

First off, I think it is a great thing that the New York Yankees and other teams do for their fans by offering this experience. It was a little funny though seeing overweight middle aged and old men in the Yankees uniform but I bet they wouldn't give up their experience at the camp for the world. Some of these men have been going to fantasy camp for years.

I got to George Steinbrenner Field Saturday morning around 9:15. The gates hadn't opened so I decided to get a look at the new statue of George that was just put up a few weeks ago. It was pretty spiffy, I took a picture of it for good measure. I went to the gift shop but they had not gotten anything new in since I had been last though the toaster that burns the Yankees interlocking NY logo into your toast looked appealing. I bought a deck of 2010 Yankees cards because out of the 20 packs of cards I've bought I only got Andy Pettitte, Curtis Granderson and 2 of Kevin Russo.

When the gates opened up they informed us that there would be no autographs which I thought was weird because isn't baseball about getting autographs? They followed the no autographs thing pretty strictly inside too and had security guarding the part of the dugout that the players would normally stand and give out autographs. When I got in, I went to sit on the Greats side which was the home side and where I normally sit for Tampa Yankees games. I sat there for about an hour until I was so cold I couldn't operate my camera. While I was sitting on that side I got some good pictures of Mickey Rivers, Homer Bush and Jeff Nelson. Honestly I had only heard or read about half the Greats there. The only Yankee Greats in Attendance that I actually had seen play was Jeff Nelson, Homer Bush, Luis Sojo, David Wells and Daryl Strawberry.

I eventually moved towards the visitors section but was still behind the net because I am afraid of foul balls. I found the head of the Tampa Yankees Booster club and sat with her and a bunch of other Tampa Yankee boosters, they were all smarter than me and were sitting in the sun from the get go. I don't really recall anything special about the games except that maybe we should try to get Homer Bush to come out of retirement and be our DH. Also, that Jeff Nelson is/was not only a good pitcher but played some pretty snazzy defense at shortstop at the fantasy games when he was done pitching for the day, especially for such a tall guy. Daryl Strawberry was there but he doesn't play because he is 100% retired and that means he never picks up a bat or glove.
One thing that I found outstanding is that some of these guys have still got the ability to not only hit a ball, but hit the ball far. Homer Bush got I think 3 doubles and a triple, and not just because the fielders(fantasy campers) were bad out there, the guy hit some hard line drives. Jeff Nelson was also one of the better hitters, especially for a pitcher. I know the level of pitching at these games is not ML level, or even U-16 league level, but still.

The Greats that participated were:

Jeff Nelson- Pitcher and SS
David Wells - Pitcher and outfield
Chris Chambliss - First base
Mickey Rivers - Second Base
Bucky Dent - SS
Luis Sojo - Third base
Homer Bush - outfield
Jesse Barfield - Outfield
Oscar Gamble - outfield
Mark Torrez - Pitcher
Paul Blair - did not play
Al Downing - did not play
Daryl Strawberry - did not play

Im sure there was someone I forgot but you can check out my picture on the sidebar for a pictoral recap.

Overall, it was a fun experience especially being able to see some of the guys I have only read about in books or seen in documentaries and highlight reels. Being at the field made me really hungry for some baseball. March cannot come soon enough.