Thursday, Feb. 6
Kerry's team split both of their games while Craig's team lost both teams. Today, they lost 11-1 and 7-0. Craig's team is in serious trouble and very probably will end up in the Toilet Bowl, as campers refer to the consolation game. (This is the game that the teams not in contention for either The Ring or The Plaque end up playing.) But there is a worse team in camp-- Jack Voight's team is 1-6. Craig's team is 2-5. Kerry told me that the real problem with Craig's team is that the last five players in the lineup can't hit the ball. So far in camp, Craig has played every position except catcher but most of it has been in left-field. And that muscle pull in his ribcage is really bothering him. Kerry told me that Craig finally took some Alleve between games today and it helped somewhat. But the big news is that Craig was on base all five times he came to the plate. He also commented on his errorless play in the field.
In Kerry's first game, the team lost 9-5 against Glenn Gulliver's team. Kerry pitched one inning doing "the Jim Abbott thing"-- propping the glove on the splint on his left hand when he would get ready to throw the ball. The three runs he gave up were all unearned, with two errors occurring behind him in the infield. First, there was a ball booted at third which should've been a double play. Later, the secondbaseman kicked a ball. He played every outfield position in this game. His team won the second game 7-4 against Jack Voight's team and he played center for five innings. He said some excitement occurred when he went to make a running catch and the left fielder ran him over, causing him to somersault backwards. This caused the ball to pop out of his glove and the batter made it into second. One bone of contention occurred when he pinch ran three times and scored all three times. Kerry explained to me that his legs are still fresh because he hasn't had to run the bases all week. He said this turned into a potentially exciting game. They were leading 7-4 heading into the sixth. With two outs, the next batter singled. The following batter singled between short and third. Kerry charged to pick up the rolling ball and flipped his glove off. He noticed the lead runner heading to third so he barehanded the ball and threw him out at third by 15'. No doubt that guy will get a Brown Rope tomorrow for making the final out of the game at third base.
And now, it's time for a story. Tonight, the campers had a Q&A session with the Weekend Pros. These are mostly players from the '83 championship team. Kerry said that Rick Dempsey had a couple of good stories to share and he related one of them to me tonight.
When the O's held spring training in Miami, many of the players opted to rent rooms in Key Bisquene. That's a very pricey area so they frequently roomed together to save money. Lenn Sakata, Mike Boddicker, and Tippy Martinez opted to share a one-bedroom apartment in the same building he (Dempsey) was staying in so they frequently went out to dinner together. Unfortunately for Dempsey, the other three would stiff him with the bill. After the fifth or sixth such time, he decided it was time to get even with them. Knowing that they played a penny ante poker game very night, and knowing that Spanish-speaking bandits were robbing people in the area, he decided to get his revenge. He sneaked into their apartment through the balcony and hid in the closet. They came back to the apartment and started their poker game. After they got it going, he put on his thickest Spanish accent and told them to lie on the floor and leave the money on the table. Apparently Tippy went into the kitchen to rummage for a weapon but Dempsey could see what he was up to through the slats on the door. Tippy came out with six butter knives, telling the would-be-thief that he had a knife. Dempsey responded, "That's fine because I've got a gun." At that point all of them hit the floor. Dempsey kept them like that for about an hour before taking all the change and leaving. They reported the apparent robbery to the police and this showed up in the Miami papers as "Three members of the Baltimore Orioles were robbed at gunpoint, losing $1000-1500." Dempsey proceeded to put the full amount of his take, all $25-26 worth, in their lockers in evenly divided piles, basically giving away that it was Dempsey, not the bandits, who had robbed them. (Kerry mentioned that at this point Boddicker noted that it couldn't have been more than $15.)
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