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34
February 22 • 2018
jn
or a brief moment, the tables
were turned.
Lyle Schaefer loved watching
Al Kaline play for the Detroit Tigers
when Schaefer was a young Tigers
fan. Earlier this month in Lakeland,
Fla., it was Kaline watching Schaefer
on the baseball diamond.
Schaefer, 59, was one of seven
friends who participated in a Tigers
fantasy camp at Tiger Town, the
team’s spring training complex.
He was in the on-deck circle, get-
ting ready to hit in a game, when
ex-Tigers pitcher Dave Rozema, one
of the coaches of Schaefer’s team, let
him know that Kaline had arrived
in a golf cart and was watching the
game.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Schaefer
said. “I said to myself, ‘Please don’t
strike out.”
He didn’t. Schaefer smacked a two-
run single with the bases loaded.
“That was the only time we saw Al
at one of our games, and I was one
of two batters he watched,” Schaefer
said. “Unbelievable.”
Schaefer wore No. 6 on his fantasy
camp baseball uniform. He picked
No. 6 because that was Kaline’s num-
ber with the Tigers.
Moments like the at-bat Schaefer
will never forget made the week in
Lakeland a great one for him even
though the Southfield resident was
still sore and black-and-blue two
weeks after returning from the fan-
tasy camp.
Playing four doubleheaders in four
days on big fields with 90-foot bases
took its toll on the 98 campers.
“It got the best of all of us,”
Schaefer said. “By the end of the
week, our legs were like rubber. We
had nothing left. I play ball a lot. I
thought I was in good shape.”
Schaefer is indeed an active guy.
When he’s not making a living as
a real estate broker and property
manager, the 1976 Oak Park High
School graduate plays in three
softball leagues including the Inter-
Congregational Men’s Club Summer
Softball League, competes in the
B’nai B’rith golf league and bowls
in the Brotherhood-Eddie Jacobson
B’nai B’rith bowling league.
He was on the Temple Israel No.
5 team that won the Greenberg
Division championship last summer
in the Inter-Congregational League.
He’s been the individual cham-
Rick Sherline, left, and Lyle Schaefer, right, share
a laugh with ex-Detroit Tigers pitcher Dave
Rozema.
pion twice and individual runner-up
twice in the five-year-old golf league.
He’s bowled seven perfect 300 games
and six 800 series in his career.
In 2005, he competed for the U.S.
bowling team at the Maccabiah
Games in Israel.
But the fantasy camp was tough.
And that was fine.
“We got to spend a week with our
heroes. Have breakfast, lunch and
dinner with them,” Schaefer said.
“Each one of the ex-Tigers I spoke
with was so nice. Guys like Juan
Berenguer, Nate Robertson and John
Hiller. I took batting practice with
(pitcher) Mike Maroth.”
When the week was done,
Schaefer said, “I asked my friends if
we wanted to come back in the first
or second week of the camp next
year.”
Schaefer said he previously partic-
ipated in a three-day weekend Tigers
fantasy camp at Tiger Stadium in
1998, a year before the stadium
closed.
Last year, he and friends Rick
Sherline of West Bloomfield and
Norm Cohen of Huntington Woods
decided to attend the 2018 Tigers
fantasy camp in Lakeland, which cel-
ebrated the 50th anniversary of the
1968 World Series champs, and four
other friends joined them.
“We know Jerry Lewis, who runs
the fantasy camp. We see him occa-
sionally. We said, ‘Now is the time
to do this,’” Schaefer said. “Sports
has given me so many wonderful life
experiences.” •
Send sports news to stevestein502004@
yahoo.com.