Travel Tips

Fantasy Baseball Camp: Training Like a Yankee, Part 3

Locations in this article:  Detroit, MI Orlando, FL Pittsburgh, PA

It’s the first full day of Yankee Fantasy Baseball Camp. Fast becoming a fantasy baseball camp connoisseur, contributor Roy Berger weighs in on his experience wearing the pinstripes. 

A day that started before the sun rose with such promise ended late afternoon in disappointment.

We left the hotel in darkness before 7 am as we had a 7:15 am report time to Steinbrenner Field. BarryO admitted on the way to the park he was nervous. “It’s a good nervous,”  he said. “I feel like I’m 15 years old today.”

It’s quite the experience to arrive at the stadium the Yankees call their spring home and enter through the player’s entrance right into the expansive clubhouse that the big boys use for almost three  months a year.

To find your locker assignment and have your name inscribed above a locker with pinstriped uniform hanging in place. Also included in first day gear was a blue Yankee road jersey, a Yankee warm-up jacket, a blue undershirt, game socks and later in the day Nike sandals and a tote bag so guys like me can carry necessities to the field and back to the hotel and not have to use a Westin hotel laundry bag like I had to with Pittsburgh in 2010.

What an exciting moment putting on the white pinstripes and making sure it was sized properly. BarryO wore number seven for his baseball hero, Mickey Mantle and I wear number 56, since I was born on May 6. (I couldn’t smear the memory of my favorite Yankee, Thurman Munson, by donning #15.)

I joined the list of Yankee greats who have worn number 56: Bill Castro, Andy Cook, Curt Brown, John Cumberland, Brian Dorsett, Rick Down and Darrell Einertson. Today’s Yankee #56 is bench coach Tony Pena. At camp is former Yankee pitcher and now fantasy camp coach Tanyon Sturtze who wore the number for real from 2004-06.

Finally, after all the pomp and circumstance of the last two days, it was time to actually play baseball with a pair of nine inning doubleheaders on the slate. Six hours later we returned to the clubhouse spent and swept.

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