A fantasy comes true: Attending Los Angeles Dodgers Adult Baseball Camp

Kramer goes to a fantasy camp? His whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down $2,000 to live like him for a week. Sleep, do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors and have sex without dating… THAT’S a fantasy camp.” – George Costanza, “Seinfeld”

Years ago, when I was a tiny Little League all-star, I made a bet with my best friend Blue.

The bet was simple. Twenty bucks that one day, someday, I would have one plate appearance for a Major League Baseball team.

That was it. It didn’t matter when or for what team, and it definitely didn’t matter if I struck out, walked, or nailed a single. Just one time up at bat. For $20 (I guess that was a lot for us back then).

Now an adult and considered “over the hill” in baseball years, I have a sneaking suspicion that my chance to made good on this childhood wager is dwindling. I just don’t have too many professional ballclubs calling me up these days asking me to fill a roster spot.

But where reality sets in, there is always a world of fantasy. A world where our imagination expands faster than our regular lives. Where a grown man can reach back into his childhood and snatch the eager years just a bit longer than we’re supposed to.

This is why, next week, Blue and I will attend Los Angeles Dodgers Adult Baseball Camp.

Set in Vero Beach, Fl., the Dodgers’ spring training facility known as Dodgertown is in its last year of existence. The session I am attending will be the 50th camp in Dodgertown. Next year, along with the pro club, it will move its facility to Arizona, effectively ending a long-standing tradition.

Regular readers of my blog know how much I love baseball. And, especially, how much I love the Dodgers. When I was 12, I would hide my radio under my pillow and listen to Dodger games late at night, hoping against hope that my parents wouldn’t catch me and make me go to sleep. I can still recall Vin Scully’s voice emanating through my pillow as I would fight off sleep just to hear the Dodgers win.

This is why I cannot fully explain just how excited I am. I realize this is a handicap for a blogger. But I have yet to process the full weight of living out my boyhood dream of playing baseball.

For one week, Blue and I will stand on the same fields as the Dodgers do every spring, playing daily doubleheaders, and receiving instruction from former Dodger greats like Maury Wills, Burt “Happy” Hooton, and Rick Monday.

Dodgertown gives each of us two uniforms – the pure white-and-blue home uniform and the steely gray road one, both emblazoned with the familiar cursive lettering of my home team, my last name splayed across my back, and my uniform number, #27, my Little League number.

They will film us, photograph us, and make baseball cards of us. We will get plenty of playing time (I have already asked to play shortstop), run drills, hit the batting cages. We will live our lives like we are in the midst of a one-week homestand, playing ball, talking about our favorite sport, and meeting some of the greatest Dodgers to ever put on the uniform.

I have told a few people about fantasy camp, but I haven’t really broadcast it. Some of my friends have reacted with bewildered stares. Almost always, the first question everyone wants to know after “What the hell is Dodger camp?” is “How much did it cost?”

It cost a lot.

Blue, who went two years ago with his dad, and I talked about going together shortly after he got back from his initial trip, which sounded like the greatest experience of his life. That very moment, I started saving as much as I could and, 18 months later, my dream to attend the camp is coming true.

Though I play softball every summer on the Mall with my friends, I haven’t played hardball since I joined a recreational team when I was 23. Sure, I can bat .650 with 5 homeruns and a team-leading 1.975 OPS when the pitches are being lobbed to me. But when you put on that uniform and have to step up to the plate to face a 75 MPH pitch, everything changes.

To prepare for camp, I went last weekend to the batting cages to see how I would do. I hacked away inside the Fast Pitch cage, unable to find my groove. I started doubting whether I could do this, if the baseball talent I had as a kid had waned.

Then I realized what I was doing wrong. I was holding my hands too low in my batting stance, taking too long to cock my arms and swing through the pitch. I adjusted my swing and started bashing baseballs right and left.

No one else was there. Why would they be in January? Fighting the cold, I paid for 172 pitches and blistered the palm of my hand. Afterwards, The Princess and I went to the Sports Authority for some equipment shopping.

While I was looking at sliding shorts, The Princess picked up a bat off the rack and modeled her batting stance. She took a cut, following through as the bat struck the clothes rack with a loud THWACK.

“Oops,” she muttered over my howls of laughter, quickly putting the bat back where she found it.

I also recently started reading Jane Leavy’s acclaimed Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy. Using my 1988 Topps baseball card of Mike Scoscia as a bookmark, each page has brought a smile to my face as I read about Duke Snider (who is rumored to show up for one day), Dave Wallace, and, of course, Koufax, the greatest Jew to ever play the game.

My chance to feel like a major leaguer is coming and when I step up to that plate that first time wearing that beautiful Dodger blue, I’ll know it’s as close as it’ll ever get for me.

I wonder if that means I win the $20.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to update my blog while at camp next week. They have Internet connection but Blue assures me that I’ll be too tired and there will be too many activities for me to write anything. So stay tuned. If I can, I will update my time there.

First three photos taken by Gary Bogden and courtesy of ESPN.com. Photo of me in the batting cage taken by Hermano in Agoura, Calif.