Cubs Fantasy Camp, Part Three

"Dan, would you stand up, please?"

It's 9:15 AM on Tuesday, and we've assembled in the Fitch clubhouse meeting room for the first installment of the "Kangaroo Kourt," the daily bull session where the coaches call out their players' most notable achievements (and, more to the point, humorous infractions) from the games the day before. Bob Dernier is explaining how his team's Monday games helped him get a sense of his players' abilities — or lack thereof. And Exhibit A is the tale of how, on Monday morning, he tried to send me home from second on a long single to the outfield, only to have me get thrown out at the plate.

"I had my stopwatch with me," he says. "And Dan Epstein's time from second to home... was a minute and twelve seconds." The room rocks with laughter. It's funny because it's true. Unfortunately.

Someone said to me yesterday that, after playing baseball for a week at fantasy camp, you'll never boo a player again for anything except a lack of hustle, because you truly realize how hard it is to play this game on a daily basis at a professional level. I would concur with that statement, though at this point I'm not even sure I'd even ride someone for not hustling; for here on Day Two, there will be several times where I want very badly to run after a fly ball, bend down for a grounder, block an errant throw or run out a base hit, and my body will just flat-out refuse to go along with the program.

Our first game of the day is against Carmen Fanzone's and Larry Biitner's team, who slaughter us 19-5. I'm starting to make better contact with the ball, at least, albeit only after repeatedly hitting it off the handle has turned my right hand into something approximating tenderized and overly spiced meat. I am also infinitely less sharp in the field than I was on Monday (the inability to move my legs at will might have something to do with it). But it's a beautiful day, and I get to have a nice chat with Fanzone, the Cubs' charming utility infielder/trumpet player from the 1970s, about his current gig as a business rep for the musicians' union in Los Angeles.

We hit against pitching machines during the games, since few campers have the arms or the stamina to actually throw several innings per day. Unfortunately, the pitching machine in our first game is S-L-O-O-O-W, which not only makes it distracting to hit against, but also causes us to finish the game well after all the others have concluded. By the time we show up to lunch, there are only ham wraps and pasta salad left; rather than load up on grub like the day before and need a nap afterwards, I grab a small plate of pasta salad and make do with that. I also pay a petting visit to Fitch, a fluffy former stray who has since been adopted as the clubhouse cat. He's pretty quiet and low-key, but quite friendly, and it's a sweet and humorous sight to see him sitting in the doorway to the office, quietly watching the parade of players walk by every morning and afternoon.

We get our mojo back in time for the afternoon game, running up six scores in the first inning off the team managed by Rick Reuschel and Pete LaCock (pictured below) on the way to a 25-11 victory. I reach base three times on two singles and an error, drive in two of our runs, and score from second on an inside-the-park home run by our left fielder Mike — although in the latter case, I am running so glacially by this time that I nearly cause a three-man pileup at the plate involving Mike, our left-center fielder Scott (who was on first) and myself.

Afterwards, I drag my weary ass back to the hotel, though not before hitting a local supermarket for water, Gatorade, bananas and a 12-pack of Miller High Life. As I'm taking my mini-cooler over to the hotel's second-floor ice machine, I spy Leon Durham hanging out in the courtyard in front of his first-floor room. "You better get down here and join the party," he yells to me, so I grab a High Life and head down to the pool area, where about two-dozen campers and several players are enjoying a late-afternoon beverage. I wind up talking at length to Ed Lynch, a conversation that continues when we meet up later at a local Italian restaurant for the "Veterans' Party," which is thrown every year by our catcher Larry (who kindly invited me and several other "rookies" to tag along). Ed is a great dude and a hilarious story-teller, though most of what he tells me is completely unprintable here. Suffice to say that he thinks Keith Hernandez was the best player he ever played with — and "Mex" (as Hernandez called himself) sure sounds like he was fun to hang out with, as well.

Glenn Beckert and his very nice lady friend decide to sit with us at the party, and (despite yesterday's seemingly hostile "Bin Laden" comment) the old second sacker turns out to be a really lovely chap. I grill him about his participation in the Cubs' ill-advised "Pennant Fever" 45 from 1969 ("The black guys on our team could really sing, so they put 'em up close to the microphone, and told me to stand all the way in the back!"); and when he finds out I live in Palm Springs, "Beck" regales me with tales of hanging out in PS in the early '70s with Frank Sinatra, who was pals with Joe Pepitone and flew the two of them and Ron Santo out to the desert for a weekend getaway. "I drank more Jack Daniels that weekend than I ever have in my life," he says, "because that's what Sinatra drank." He also opines that the two reasons for the Cubs' '69 collapse were that 1) Leo Durocher rarely rested his starting lineup, and 2) Randy Hundley didn't drink. "Drinking takes your mind off the pressure," he insists. By the end of the evening, Beckert and I are good buddies — or at least, every time we cross paths, he will go "My man!" and slap me five.