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Fantasy Baseball Camp: Training Like a Yankee, Part 1

Locations in this article:  Detroit, MI Fort Lauderdale, FL Miami, FL Pittsburgh, PA Tampa, FL

I knew this year I wanted to do it again and I knew it was time to be a big boy. Pony up, pay the bucks and become a New York Yankee for the week! Somewhere around 1976 I became a devout Yankee fan, a team I had truly despised in the ’60s.

I remember how it happened. My first job out of the University of Miami was as the publicity director for a greyhound racing track in Hollywood, Florida. The Yankees had their spring training camp in Fort Lauderdale, less than 15 minutes from our racetrack. We used to have a lot of ballplayers and celebrities visit Hollywood during our racing season. The Yankees were being ingrained in me.

In fact it probably couldn’t get any better for a 26-year-old baseball fanatic than it did over Labor Day weekend in 1978 as the Yankees played a memorable four game series against the Red Sox in Fenway Park. I went to Boston in a weekend known forever as the Boston Massacre, won the four games by a combined 42-9.

I became dear friends with Thurman Munson and through our friendship and his tragic passing, I become a very devout Yankee fan. In fact, there are only two teams in baseball I follow and root for–the Yankees and whoever is playing Boston.

So after two really good experiences with fantasy baseball and seemingly the legs and other body parts still in place, this was the year to become a Yankee.

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