Contributor Roy Berger landed at Yankees’ baseball camp and he’s stepping up to the plate to report on meeting Yankee legends and his first training sessions. Keep checking back to see how he fares both on and off the field.
Where’s Fred?
In preparation for this year’s fantasy camp, the most common question was, “Is Fred going with you?”
Last year Fred became a fantasy camp blog icon. Certainly if you followed our Detroit Tigers experience last January you became very well acquainted with ole Fred.
Fred, a business colleague from Connecticut, wanted to go to camp not necessarily because he is a baseball buff but because “I wanted to spend the week with you. Sounds like fun.”
I’ve gotten to the point of life where nobody really wants to spend much time with me save for my wife Andi and our 3-year-old dog, Ibis.
Fred is a good guy and fun. I warned him from my Pirates experience of 2010 what lies ahead and encouraged him at the tender age of 50 to practice at some basic stretching and throwing. A week before we were due to report in Lakeland, Florida I asked Fred if he’s been conditioning.
“Yep” he said. “Went out and bought a new pair of socks; watched an old baseball game on ESPN Classic and been chewing some bubblegum.”
I tried to stress the physical baseball skill set needed for the week at our age is a bit out of the norm but he didn’t want to hear any of it. Instead, he said not to worry as he is in really good shape, is very quick for his age and just might be the fastest guy on our team.
The rest of the story is something you just can’t make up. His very first at-bat of camp he made contact with the ball and went down. Baseball parlance it’s called being “snipered.” A pulled hamstring that never healed combined with a hand injury saw Fred with limited playing time and the inability to run the bases for himself. By the third day he was so wrapped in tape and gauze he looked like a mummy.
So where’s Fred this year? Who knows. He never paid his Yankee deposit.
