Forty years ago this year, Detroit native Jerry Lewis, a diehard Tiger fan and local manufacturer’s representative for a clothing line learned that the Chicago Cubs were hosting a fantasy camp for Cub fans to play baseball with their former heroes.
Intrigued with the concept, Lewis contacted former 1968 Tiger Jim Price, and the two soon created the first Detroit Tigers Fantasy Camp in Lakeland, Florida in the spring of 1984. Lewis and Price had been friends since previously working together at Michigan Consolidated Gas.
At a cost of $2,295 that included airfare, hotel accommodations, the uniform, and meals, 86 Tiger fans attended the first camp in 1983.
The camps soon became an instant hit with participants ranging from auto executives, a priest, journalists, and blue-collar workers who were able to live the dream and wear the old English D under the watchful eyes of their coaches that included Mickey Lolich, Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Jim Northrup, other former Tigers from the Sixties and Seventies, and later members of the 1984 World Championship team.
Most of the campers had not played baseball for years and no matter what one’s ability is, everyone plays.
After first obtaining instructional tips from the former big leaguers and playing several games during the week at the Tigers’ Lakeland Florida training facility fields, on the final day the campers dressed in Tiger uniforms played against their former heroes at Marchant Stadium.
The camps soon garnered national attention from Detroit’s two newspapers, ESPN, and the Wall Street Journal. For years there were two one-week camps in Lakeland that brought as many as 250 campers, 40% of whom were repeats.
For a brief time in the early Nineties the Tigers started their own Fantasy Camp that competed with Lewis but in 1996 he was hired to run the ballclub’s camps.
Nearly every team in Major League Baseball now features a fantasy camp but Lewis’s creation is the longest standing one. He was often contacted by other MLB clubs seeking his advice on how to make the fantasy camps successful.
In 2021 the Tiger Fantasy Camp was cancelled due to the pandemic and Lewis was let go.
This past January the Tigers started a new camp under the direction of longtime employee Jordan Field while Lewis ventured on his own again and held a “Baseball Legends Fantasy Camp” for 38 campers held at the Jackie Robinson Complex in Vero Beach Florida, the former spring training site for the Dodgers.
Glenn Smith has attended 29 baseball fantasy camps run by Jerry Lewis. Last year he attended the baseball camp at Vero Beach.
“The former Dodgers training facility is beautiful, and tons of history and I didn’t even have to move my car because of all the great accommodations” says Smith who attended his first Tigers fantasy camp in 1998 as a 40th birthday gift from his parents. “I later told them that they also bought me a whole new set of friends.”
“Jerry Lewis has always has taken care of every minute of the experience and that’s why his camps have always been exceptional” says Smith whose coaches at last year’s camp were ’84 Tiger World Champions Milt Wilcox, Doug Bair, Juan Berenguer, and Howard Johnson.
This coming year Lewis has once again reserved the Jackie Robinson Complex in Vero Beach, Florida for January 15-21, 2024. The JRC complex contains wonderful baseball fields including Holman Stadium, batting cages, pitching tunnels and practice fields.
Each day starts with “live” batting practice thrown by a former major league pitcher. Eight other former star players and special guests serve as coaches as the campers play two games a day during the week. The campers dress in MLB uniforms inside a major league clubhouse where attendants clean the unforms daily.
Lewis says that the camp includes staying in first class accommodations and the serving of three mails a day in a beautiful cafeteria. Campers have access to an Olympic size swimming pool, recreation hall with pool table, ping pong, TV’s and a large bar. The complex is six miles from downtown Vero Beach and the Atlantic Ocean and is located near the Orlando Airport.
According to Lewis, the cost to retuning camp alumni is $3,500 with a $1,500 deposit while new campers pay $3,700 plus an additional $600 for a full uniform.
For more information contact Jerry Lewis at 248-821-0635 and [email protected]
lawrence sproul
I remember going to Spring Training games at Historic Dodger town near Vero Beach . It is a beautiful ball park where the Dodgers held camp at . You were so close to the action you could hear Tommy Lasorta barking at the Dodgers players . Some of the language was not meant for children either . It would be a wonderful place for a Fantasy camp .