Memoirs of a Reluctant Catcher, Part Two

(Above: Me catching, with Eddie Vedder at the plate.)

Back in the mid-1970s, when I first fell in love with baseball, I dreamed of playing catcher for a big league team. Not only did some of the best and most colorful players of the era squat behind the plate — guys like Johnny Bench, Thurman Munson, Carlton Fisk, Ted Simmons and Manny Sanguillen, to name a few — but the idea of the catcher as the "captain of the defense" really appealed to my inner Napoleon. And then there was the gear that came with the position — not just the special glove, but the whole bad-ass body armor ensemble, which could make even a relative scrub like Biff Pocoroba look like a man to be reckoned with.

My Little League catching career was short-lived, however; like, "one game" short-lived. The dream started to unravel before our 1977 season even began, when my coach had me warm up a pitcher on the sidelines — but without a mask, since our team's budget only afforded us one of those, and it was currently in use by our starting catcher. Failing to get my glove on an 11 year-old's attempt at a curveball, I took it squarely in the side of the noggin, triggering an expletive-laden tantrum that was a deep shade of blue even by my youthful standards. It also triggered a fear of the ball that stood me in lousy stead once I actually donned "the tools of ignorance" and caught a few innings in a real game; I think I caught most of the pitches that were thrown to me in that game...but only after they bounced off the screen behind me and ricocheted back towards the plate.

From then on — with the exception of a brief but equally unsuccessful attempt at becoming a 12 year-old junkballer — it was strictly IF/OF for me. During my previous visit to Randy Hundley's Cubs Fantasy Camp in 2010, I spent most of the games at second base (a position I can handle pretty well) and far right field (a position that, given our four-man outfield setup, adequately hides my lack of speed). So I figure that, this time around, I'll just tell my new teammates and coach that they'd be best off putting me at second or in right.

Of course, as I quickly realize, you can't just appear in camp on the last day of the season and decide where you'd like to play. When I show up at the Fitch Field clubhouse at 8:45 on Friday morning, my coach — Rick "Big Daddy" Reuschel — reiterates that I'll be catching today...in both games.

"Big Daddy, I've never caught a game in my life," I protest, lying only slightly.

"Then this is a great time for you to learn," he chuckles. He also mentions that we're in contention for the camp championship, and we'll most likely need to win both games in order to take home the trophy. So, you know, no pressure.

My stomach is beginning to churn audibly at the prospect, but I feel a little better once I don my blue Cubs road jersey (emblazoned with #8, in honor of Joe Pepitone) take a stool in the meeting room next to my pals Paul Malek, Beth Chaplin, and Bobby "Skates" Farinelli. Paul was my double-play partner in 2010, and though both Beth and Skates played on another team that year, they're dear pals of mine as well — Skates even made the four-hour drive from Iowa to come to one of my Big Hair & Plastic Grass Chicago events in 2010, and I hung out with him and Beth in Minneapolis last summer at a Twins game, followed by a legendarily festive evening with Ron Coomer, his wife Paula, and several other Cubs campers.

The morning clubhouse meeting is exactly like how I remembered it. The coaches take turns running down the games from yesterday, alternately praising their players and fining them for a variety of comical infractions. This year's crop of coaches include former players Bobby Dernier, Ed Lynch, Pete LaCock, Jose Cardenal, Lee Smith, Todd Hundley, Willie Wilson, Larry Biittner, Carmen Fanzone, Ron Coomer, Keith Moreland, Glenn Beckert and Rick Reuschel — all of whom were here in 2010 — and Hall of Famer Billy Williams, who arrived late in the week to fill in for a now-departed Fergie Jenkins. Joe Pepitone, who was supposed to participate in 2010 and didn't, apparently showed up for two days this year and then disappeared. Thus, my treasured copy of Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud remains sadly unautographed...

With Randy Hundley acting as MC, some of the coaches also offer up a few war stories from their playing days. Hundley Sr. tries to get Cardenal to re-tell his famous "Ham and Eggs" story (about how he ordered that dish virtually ever day during his first season in the minors, because he didn't know enough English to order anything else); but Jose has been suffering from a bad cold and can barely speak, so he calls upon Eddie Vedder to serve as his "interpreter". Vedder, a close friend of the Cuban outfielder, proceeds to tell the whole story in a hilariously note-perfect approximation of Cardenal's Chico Esquela-esque patois.

On my way out of the clubhouse after the meeting, someone stops me and lets me know that Robert Hegyes, aka "Epstein" of Welcome Back, Kotter fame, has passed away at the too-young age of 60. Though I had no love for the Epstein character — or for the amount of times I got called "Juan" in school because of him — I inwardly decide to dedicate my first game to my pop-culture namesake.

We're scheduled to face Vedder's team (coached by Cardenal and LaCock) in the Friday morning game. As anyone who knows me (or has ever read this blog) can probably tell you, I am not a Pearl Jam fan, to say the least. But I've gotta give it up for Eddie — not only can the guy cover some serious ground in centerfield, but he also turns out to be a genuinely sweet and open guy. His teammate, my friend Bryan Redington, introduces us in the dugout before the game, and tells Eddie about Big Hair & Plastic Grass; we immediately begin to riff on Oscar Gamble, Bake McBride, and the fact that we both have the best hair in camp. He then proceeds to take a hit away from me during my first at-bat of the game, spearing a sinking liner to dead center, but I can't really hold it against him. Is it possible to recognize a kindred spirit in someone, even if you can't stand their art?

Having taken the precaution of visiting a batting cage right before the trip to Mesa, I'm already swinging the bat as well or better than I ever did in 2010. It's one frozen rope after another for me, two of which drop for hits and kick off big innings for us. "Larry told me you couldn't hit a lick," chuckles Big Daddy, after I make it safely to first for the second time in the game. While we're laughing, Vedder's bodyguard nails me lounging off of first with the "hidden ball" trick. But Big Daddy claims that he called time out, and thankfully the umpire buys it.

Two plays later, I cross home plate for the second time today, and we're well on our way to a 20-10 hammering of the "Celebrity Team". Everyone on our team contributes, but it's Joe Fath, our stellar left fielder and cleanup hitter, who leads the way with a single, two triples, and an inside-the-park home run. We have qualified for a spot in the one-game championship playoff!

Unlike the three other games happening in camp, ours is fairly well-attended, mostly by curious fans who want to see Vedder, John Cusack and Chris Chelios play. For the record, Vedder's a very good player, and Chelios was reportedly playing great until he busted his ankle; Cusack (pictured below) hit some ropes in our game, but the consensus seems to be that he's, er, much less of a natural ballplayer than Vedder or Chelios.

I've gotta say — it's really nice to play a winning game in front of a crowd, but it's even better to play a winning game with your girlfriend cheering you on and blowing you kisses from the stands, which is something I've truly never experienced before. (Thanks for the support, Miss Howerton, and thank you as well for taking these awesome action shots.)

Oh yeah — this catching thing, while not easy, is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. It helps that we're not allowed to steal in our games, of course, and that I'm catching balls thrown by a (relatively) accurate pitching machine, but it's still a fairly rigorous position. You're literally involved in every play, every pitch, and catching keeps you on your toes (and on your knees) in a way that no other position does. The other team's leadoff hitter fouls one off my mask on the third pitch of the game...but much to my surprise, it doesn't hurt at all. Much more painful are the sinking pitches that land on my right thigh; my weak knees won't allow me to do a full catcher's squat, so I'm essaying a combination Manny Sanguillen/Randy Hundley stance, with my right knee down and my right hand behind my back. This leaves my upper right thigh relatively unprotected, though, and by the end of the day I'll have a bruise on my thigh running from knee to groin, looking like a sideways map of Great Britain fashioned from corned beef. But the satisfying "Thwhomp!" I hear everytime the ball lands in the mitt's sweet spot more than compensates for the pain.

The only drag about catching that I hadn't anticipated is that, with all the putting on and taking off of the shinguards and chest protector, you wind up missing a lot of the actual game — and you spend a lot of time anticipating when your next at-bat will be, so that you'll have all the equipment off in time to head to the plate. By the same token, you don't wanna "take it all off" and have the inning end before you get up to bat, and then have to put it all back on again. Thanks mucho to Rob Skinner, our opponent's impressively bearded catcher (pictured below), who not only gave me several helpful hints about donning the "tools of ignorance," but also volunteered on a couple of occasions to fill in for me on the field while I got my shit together in the dugout. That same spirit of friendliness and cooperation seems pretty widespread in camp this year, and that's truly a beautiful thing.