Fulfilling a fantasy: O's fans travel to Sarasota for week of nostalgia

I don’t know if there’s been anything more appropriately named than Dream Week.

It’s the Baltimore Orioles’ version of a fantasy camp, held mainly at Twin Lakes Park with a few games a day played at Ed Smith Stadium. This year’s iteration began Jan. 21 and runs through Jan. 27, and features such past O’s players as outfielders Mike Deveraux and Gary Roenicke, and pitchers Ross Grimsley and Tom Niedenfuer. Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer and popular catcher Rick Dempsey also helped at the camp, according to a news release from the club.

If you don’t know, this is a week for adults (30 or older) to get baseball training from those stars, and play games against each other. They also get personalized jerseys (home and road), daily breakfast and lunch in the clubhouse, a locker space, treatment from the Orioles athletic training staff, etc. They’re treated like MLB players, essentially.

It’s a neat experience. It’s also a costly one, with everything, including roundtrip travel from Baltimore to Sarasota, coming out to $4,601. Not everyone came from Baltimore, but that gives you an idea. There’s a lot of things on which a person can spend thousands of dollars. My question, in talking to Dream Week participants, was why they decided to spend it here.

For some, like Mariano Nino, the trip is a highlight of a baseball-loving life. Nino, 42, is from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. He didn’t get many baseball games down there as a kid, but he did get the 1983 World Series, which he watched with his family. Some family members were rooting for the Philadelphia Phillies, so he went against them and chose — well, you can guess the rest.

The O’s won that championship and Nino’s heart. He’s been to Baltimore five times since then, strictly to watch his team, and plans family vacations to the U.S. around where the O’s will be at the time. This year, he’s going to Seattle in September for a three-game set. When he saw an advertisement for this year’s Dream Week, he knew he had to do that, too. It’s his first time participating.

“It’s amazing to see the stadium,” Nino said while standing in the home dugout. His eyes moved across the stadium’s horizon, then down to the field. “It’s different than on TV. The grass is so nice.”

Then there are guys like the 52-year-old Scott Ward. A lifelong Orioles fan from Crisfield, Maryland, he was lucky enough to attend playoff and World Series games during the “Orioles Magic” run of the late 1970s. He’s wanted to cross this off his bucket list since his early 30s. Last year, he did, and he plans on coming again next year.

“It’s a big thrill to play for and be coached by my boyhood idols,” Ward said. “You feel a little bit of awe.”

It’s also being able to play baseball with people who have a similar interest, he said. There’s a natural camaraderie. You see people from one year to the next and reminisce on old memories while creating new ones.

The final piece of the Dream Week puzzle clicked for me when I chatted with Jim Arkin. At 31, Arkin is one of the youngest participants of the week, and one of the best. He hit a three-run homer in the first inning, then pitched a scoreless second for his team. He also happens to be from Olney, Maryland, my hometown, which is neither here nor there but I thought it was a fun coincidence.

It’s his second Dream Week. He may not have come at all if his father, Doug Arkin, 62, hadn’t gone in 2016. The two love Orioles baseball. Jim lives in Philadelphia now, but Doug is still in Olney. Their biggest bonding point is still the love of the game. They talk it constantly, Jim said. When Doug attended on his own, he told Jim how great it was, and that he should come next year. He did. To say Jim is happy with his decision is an understatement.

“It’s the best thing in the world,” Jim said. “That bonding experience you get with your dad as a kid? Here, you get to do it as an adult, and you appreciate it more. You don’t appreciate it enough as a kid.”

While turning a double play in a game Jan. 22, Jim fired the ball to Doug for the second out. That’s something he dreamed about as a kid, he said. His eyes water a bit when talking about it. If you’ve played the game, you know what he’s feeling.

That was the moment I “got it.” All the pomp and circumstance is fun, but what Dream Week boils down to is being a kid again. You play sports with your childhood heroes and have them sign sports cards between innings. You have no responsibilities other than to have fun, and you get to spend time with your family, time you can’t otherwise spend anymore, not when life rips you away. It’s ‘Field of Dreams’ come to life, and Jim acknowledges as much.

“I just hope he (Doug) doesn’t disappear into a cornfield after this,” Jim said. He laughed, but there’s an underlying seriousness to the joke. He said he’ll continue to play every year as long as Doug can handle it physically.

Someday, time will catch up to us all, but I hope that day is far off for the Arkin family and the rest of the camp's stars. Everyone should get a chance to rid themselves of the world's worries and angst through a nostalgia trip, and not many trips are more powerful than a game of catch.

Like I said, there's nothing more aptly named than Dream Week.