Travel Tips

Fantasy Baseball Camp: Weathering Injuries

Locations in this article:  Pittsburgh, PA

Our first round opponent was the Steve Blass-Bill Mazeroski team that ended our three game winning streak on Tuesday morning in a very competitive 3-2 game.  They feature hard throwing former D-1 collegiate ace Denis Dunlap and he took the mound again this morning.  We had to be huge underdogs losing three in a row and Blass-Mazeroski rolling along with a 5-1 record.  However we were the home team as we won our division with a 3-3 mark and they finished second in a tie breaker in theirs.

This one for all practical purposes was over in the top of the first.  They gave Dunlap an early 3-0 lead and that was enough as we did a poor job defensively and also ran ourselves out of a couple of innings. We were eliminated by a closer than it should have been 5-2 margin.  The once hottest team in camp finished by losing four straight and a disappointing 3-4 overall record.

My highlight today was having World Series legend and Hall of Famer Mazeroski, 76, coaching first base and the constant chat throughout the game.  We actually know some people in common through his winter golf exploits in the panhandle of Florida.  The sun was shining though the temps dropped into the high 60’s but fortunately for me the wind was blowing fairly briskly to the right.  Maz is never without a cigar in his mouth.  The wind blowing away from me helped limit my morning emphysema risk.~

Maz is a legend not only in Pittsburgh but the Pirates fantasy camp uses him, rightly so, as their marquis name and attraction.  He’s being doing this for years.  I asked him if he still enjoyed it. He didn’t miss a beat. “Sure do. You get to see a lot of strange things in the course of a week!”

After struggling with the hip yesterday, I was justifiably dropped to eighth in the order from sixth all week and batted only twice in a low scoring, fast paced game with a ground out and walk. However I did stand upright for all seven innings in the field.

The championship game was played this afternoon with the temps sharply dropping to the low 60’s and to nobody’s surprise the Blass-Maz team easily won the camp title with a convincing 11-4 win over the team coached by Richie Hebner and Bob Walk that we routed 9-1 earlier in the week.  We were still good back then.

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