Sunday, January 27
The good news for the day is that there were no new injuries and the bruise on the heel of his hand doesn't hurt. However, he did discover late last night that he had torn the nail on his middle finger of his throwing hand so he talked to the trainers about it and they applied a fingertip bandage. He said this gave him a good feel for the ball so it is obviously some sort of tactile bandage. I've asked him to find out if this would be "legal" for a major league pitcher to wear in a game. He also had the raspberry on his knee bandaged but the bandage came off in the first game when he went sliding into second so the trainer taped it between innings. He said they don't like to tape these sorts of things since it can hinder the ability to run but because of how active he is they had to go that route.
He said there was 80-100% humidity with temperatures well in the 80's and everyone was "sweating bullets." He was very sore and tired going into the days action and wound up leading off today.
Once again, his team lost both games but Kerry said they should've won both. In the first game, they were playing the best team in the veteran's tournament and were tied at five heading into the last inning but the other team scored three runs in the sixth to win it. Kerry doubled and scored in his first AB. He grounded to third and the umpire blew the call at first, calling him out despite the fact that he clearly had it beaten out. (He said there were a lot of bad calls by the umpire in this game.) In his third, and final, AB, he walked and scored again. On the mound, he pitched the requisite one inning, giving up one hit and one walk with no strikeouts.
In the second game, he lined out to third in his first AB. He described this time at the plate as "hitting the ball right on the screws" (a phrase I've never heard him use before). He walked and scored in his second AB. And with his team trailing 3-1, with the run having just been walked in, he hit a ball over the centerfielder's head for what would've been a triple. However, because of the three-run rule (see Saturday's report for further explanation on this), he was credited with a double and 2 RBI. This put his team ahead 4-3. They scored another run in the top of the sixth to take a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the inning. Kerry came in to pitch and ran into trouble defensively. Their regular third baseman was out of the game due to injury so their first baseman was playing third. And because Kerry was pitching, the leftfielder was in at short. He struck out the first batter but the next batter hit a grounder to third that the thirdbaseman missed for an error and the batter went all the around to third. The next batter hit a routine grounder to short, scoring the runner, but the batter was safe at first on a throwing error. This made it a 5-4 game. The next batter doubled past the third baseman but Kerry said the umpire blew the call at third, calling the runner safe so that put him on third while tying the game. The next guy fouled off a bunch of pitches before hitting a sharp grounder to third on a 2-2 pitch that went by the third baseman. This allowed the winning run to score and Kerry was saddled with the loss.
In the field, all the plays he dealt with were routine-- one popup, a bunch of grounders, and a relay from left to throw a runner out at the plate by 15 feet. (It should be noted that most of the people at fantasy camp are not real fast runners.)
Kerry said he watched some of the rookies while they were doing some of their drills and he spotted three women in camp this year. One of them had clearly played competitive softball because she was catching someone and clearly knew what she was doing, moving around behind the plate while squatting. He also saw several of the pros, including Dave Schmidt, who is down for the first time and will be serving as a roving pitching instructor along with Scott McGregor. Ken Gerhart will also be down for the weekend session; the first time he's participated in fantasy camp.
Tomorrow, he's volunteered to help with the rookie evaluation games which means he won't be sleeping in. The draft will take place late morning and the first regular game of the camp will be played tomorrow afternoon. This will be followed by the karaoke session at the hotel and possibly the Jim Palmer signing session. (Kerry wasn't sure if that's being held Monday or Tuesday night.)
He did share an interesting story related by Deacon Jones which I thought I'd pass along. Deacon serves as an advance scout for the team. Some years ago, when Johnny Oates was still managing the team, Deacon was scouting a team the Orioles would be playing about a week away and the game turned into a blowout situation. Normally those are worthless from a scouting standpoint, for all the obvious reasons, but he noticed that when they got a runner on second, the baserunner would alter his hands on the basepaths from pitch to pitch. He decided to keep an eye on this. And as he did, he noticed that whenever the pitch was on the outside of the plate, the baserunner on second would put his hands outside his legs. But if the pitch was signaled for the inside of the plate, the runner would put his hands inside his knees. This continued in the remaining two games in the series-- every time a baserunner reached second, this signal would happen. So Deacon wrote it up and faxed it to the Orioles. The following week, while he was scouting another opponent, he kept an eye on the scoreboard and he watched the Orioles take three of the four games against this particular opponent. A couple of days later, he had a call from Johnny Oates in his hotel room. Johnny said, "Deacon, those three wins were for you." Oates proceeded to tell him that the team used his scouting report to throw off the opposing batters. Whenever a runner reached second, they would signal inside for an outside pitch and outside for an inside pitch. This led the opposing batters to foul off pitches, break bats, and hit weak grounders instead of moving their runners over. Deacon told the crowd at camp today that it's rare to have something like this come along but when it does this is where an advance scout can really make a difference.