Monday, January 28
Kerry started the day by helping out in the rookie evaluation games since they were short on players. He's never done this in the past, always opting to sleep in a bit later if his veteran's team didn't make the tournament, but he found this helpful in two respects. First, it helped him get loose and second it allowed him to scout the new talent a bit. He wound up playing the outfield in these games and walked in his two AB's. But these stats won't be counted for his final camp stats so they aren't included in the table.
Around noon, the draft took place and the campers learned which team they'd be on the rest of the week. Kerry was drafted by Jim Gentile for the second time in his Fantasy Camp career. The coaches for Gentile's team are Joe Durham and Jim Spencer. Marv Foley, who has coached under Gentile in the past, isn't at camp this year. Neither is Dallas Williams, who had duties to carry out for the Rockies. Kerry seems pretty pleased with the team overall but is worried about the pitching depth. He's concerned that he's going to end up being their third best pitcher and that this may lead to a tired arm. Something they're doing this year is playing one game on Wed. and one on Thurs. under the veteran's tournament rules where each pitcher only throws one inning. This is designed to help preserve people's arms.
In their first game today, they won 7-4 against Bill Swaggerty's team. In the past, Swaggerty's team has contended every year but Kerry doesn't think his team looks all that good this year. Should be interesting to see how this plays out as the week progresses. In the game, they took a 5-0 lead into the fifth and their pitcher had only given up one hit with no walks. But things started to fall apart, with "some pukey hits here and there" and they scored four runs to make it a 5-4 game. Gentile's team pushed two across in the bottom of the fifth and that wound up being the end of the scoring as their starter completed the game. It should be noted that in the regular tournament, the three run rule doesn't apply and that there is no mercy rule. In fact, Kerry told me there was an incredibly lopsided game last year that was along the lines of 30-2.
As for Kerry's performance, he played shortstop and hit second. Their centerfielder played division one lacrosse (he thinks at Johns Hopkins) and is fairly fast. But Kerry is the better ballplayer, with a bit more pop to his bat so Gentile put him second in the order instead of his usual leadoff and he expects to remain there through the tournament. In his first AB, he walked and scored a run. He singled solidly to left in his second AB and came around to score. And in his final AB in the fifth inning, with a runner on first and two out, he hit a pop fly in no-man's land that should've been caught but wasn't. He was credited with a single and came around to score the second insurance run of the inning.
In the field, he had a lot of grounders to deal with, seven or eight of them to his best recollection, one line drive and a couple of popups. He said there were 11 grounders in the first four innings. He did comment on one good play he made, snagging a ball behind second that went just to the right of the mound. He threw the runner out from the outfield grass.
He said it was very warm again today, with temperatures in the low 80's, but the humidity wasn't quite as high. However, everyone was still sweating like crazy and after the games were complete one of the campers was sent to a local hospital due to dehydration. Once again he had to slide into second and once again he tore the tape off his injured knee. He had it retaped and, tomorrow, is going to try some sort of protective device to cover the tape. The trainers are cleaning out the wound at the beginning and end of every day and at this point he doesn't expect it to heal until after he gets home. But the good news is that the bruise on his hand is almost gone and he hasn't aggrevated his knee. For those of you not in the know, Kerry is missing the ACL ligament in his right knee. He tore it playing street hockey and at the time they didn't do ACL replacements on non-athletes so that knee is unstable. This is the one thing he always worries about and is the reason he doesn't play in any of the over 30 leagues out here. Last year in camp it gave out on him when he was turning a pivot and it was sore for the rest of camp.
As for tomorrow, he expects to be playing third in the first game since today's pitcher is one of the best shortstops in camp. He expects to start the second game. All of his stats are updated through Monday's action via the link below.
Off the field, he said he went to the karaoke event and it was fairly well attended, with about 60 campers present. They had pizza on hand so he ate there which saved him the trouble of having to go out and find something. (Kerry and I are both vegetarians so finding things to eat whenever we're on the road can be a challenge.) He said the guy who has organized this in the past had a very good voice. He said there were about two dozen different acts. Very few soloists, probably due to embarrassment. <g> But there were several duets and a few larger groups. He said the talent level with these varied from o.k to horrible, with a couple of the acts obviously being tone deaf. But it sounded as though the event itself wound up being a lot of fun even though Kerry himself didn't participate. (Anyone who knows him would've been shocked if he had.)
The Jim Palmer signing is scheduled for tomorrow evening. Kerry said Palmer was in camp today, in uniform, lifting weights, but he didn't really talk to him. Kerry did comment that some of the pros who manage seem to be very astute at judging talent and picking their teams. Bill Swaggerty is one, as is Rocky Johnson and Jack Voight. No doubt this is the reason their teams frequently vie for the Ring. The fact that Swaggerty's team didn't appear to be that good this year probably means he had a low number in the draft.