How’d You Do Against the Pros?

Probably the #1 question I was asked about my recent experience at Phillies Phantasy Camp in Clearwater Florida.

Turns out that comparing ourselves to major league baseball talent is not what this week was all about.

There were 150 people down here playing a baseball tournament against each other.

6 games over 3 days.

Men & women

All walks of life.

All shapes and sizes.

Complete strangers.

Fathers & sons.

MOTHERS & sons.

Husbands & wives.

Brothers, cousins, families.

All came together over their shared love of baseball.

We were supported by a huge staff of people both inside and outside the Phillies organization as well as 24 or so Phillies alumni who’s sole purpose was to make us FEEL like major leaguers.

Level of play didn’t really matter.

Truth is that if those pros wanted to truly compete, most of us, even the team that won the tournament, would have no chance.

We would have ended up leaving feeling humiliated or degraded as not even worthy to share the field with them.

No, this week wasn’t about that 1 inning against the pros on the last day of camp.

This week was about being treated, and treating each other like “major leaguers”.

It’s about a teammate from the bench, without even being asked, chucking a ball to the 1st baseman when he comes in from the field so he’s ready for the next inning.

It’s about going extra far into the outfield to help give the older or slower player a chance to hit the cutoff man on a ball that gets to the fence.

It’s about coaching someone through the nuances of playing a position they’ve never played before but always wanted to try.

It’s about being cheered on and encouraged by your teammates and your fans.

It’s about talking to former professional baseball players about life, family, and getting to know them on a human level.

It’s about Joe Blanton, playing 3rd, taking his time while making a lazy, off target throw to 1st to let a 54 year old trumpet player leg out an infield single off of a 65 mph Randy Wolf “fastball.”

It’s about a retired player slowly jogging to first to enable our team to turn a 6-4-3 double play so that we only lost our one inning game against the pros by a score of 1-0

It’s about Milt Thompson, after taking some heavy razing from EVERYONE after a swing and miss, still choosing to roll over an outside pitch to the right side instead of drilling it back up the middle. (He still got the RBI)

It’s like putting on that uniform, being inside those incredible facilities, and stepping onto those pristine ball fields gave us all permission to carry ourselves like big leaguers in life. (i.e with humanity and compassion)

Look, nothing is prefect.

There are always gonna be assholes out there. They’re called umpires (haha just kidding those guys were alright)

There WILL be errors.

You might lose your first two games by a combined score of 34-0.

But, you might also figure out a way to score some runs, and come together as a team to win a few games.

This week those people and those less than perfect moments were minimized by the humanity, compassion, camraderie, patience, teamwork, and the SMILES.

So, how’d I do against the pros?

In the end, I like to think that I carried myself and treated others like the major leaguers that they are meant to be.