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After another dubious season by HCRE (that’s Head Coach Randy Edsall), I felt now was as perfect as a time as ever to reflect on the past. Perhaps the only thing I wrote on this blog that turned out to be correct (I really thought the Orioles future was bright and that the Royals were on their way to being serious players in the AL Central) was the one post that I deleted!
It was a post in which I received hate emails for, a post entitled, “Connecticut Football is a Joke” written in September 2009. After reading articles by John Feinstein of the Washington Post, and Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant about the latest “successful season” in the eyes of Randy Edsall, I thought now was the perfect time to resurrect the past.
Before I begin, I do have to state the reason I deleted the post. I deleted the post because after the horrendous tragedy of Jasper Howard, I didn’t think it was fair to have a negative article about Randy Edsall on a website associated with myself. I would never take something down because the majority of people called me a coward or an idiot, and that is NOT the reason I deleted this post. In fact, it was left up for over a year after I wrote it.
After reading the articles by the aforementioned people, thanks to the Wayback Machine (and a little help from the Bleacher Report), I went back and found this article. It turns out everything I wrote back in 2009 about Randy Edall is exactly echoed in the article written by Feinstein, after just one season of him covering Maryland football. Of course, since he has a little more credibility, I can totally understand why thousands of people read his, while roughly 60 read mine!
Before I repost the article, I am going to share the email I wrote to Feinstein this morning (written before I went back and read my original work):
FROM A DIEHARD UCONN FAN TO MARYLAND: THANK YOU!
John,
What a great article about Randy Edsall! I feel for you, but as a diehard UConn fan, all I have to say is thank you Maryland! Even during my time at UConn as a student, working for the Athletic department, and covering his post-game press conferences, I couldn’t stand his smugness, and constant “Like I saids”. Even worse than that was his “uh, uh”, or the ability to start a sentence and completely stop in the middle of it and start a new one.
Anyone who seldom understands the game of football can understand that he ran a gloried high school offense at a Division 1 football program at UConn. All they did was run the football! Ask yourself this question – if Donald Brown goes to any other school in which they play a balanced offense, do you think he is a first round pick? ‘Tis why DJ Shomate transferred in!
The only big time recruits he got? Jerrell Miller transferred before playing a game, Zack Frazier got benched in favor of a true freshman, and if it wasn’t for his one five yard catch ever-three-games, who would have known Dwayne Difton was on the team? Aaron Hernandez reneged on a commitment he made to UConn only so his dad could see him play, and then when his father unfortunately passed, Aaron left for Florida faster than than N.C. State can score on Maryland.
He completely alienated all the high school coaches in this state. In fact, Graham Stuart chose BC (I can’t believe BC is stopping the ACC from taking us, what a joke), yes BC, over UConn because his high school football coach had a bad relationship with Randy. Amari Spivey? Yeah, he chose Iowa.
Nothing against his players who always got better by the time they graduated, but it doesn’t take a smart one to know that when 1.) a recruit chooses UConn over Buffalo and Ohio, they feel like they should have received more big time offers, and because of that 2.) play with a chip on their shoulders. Similar to a Cinderella in the NCAA Tournament, of course they are going to play their hardest and do whatever they can to prove to the world that he should be playing for that big-time program. And that is what helped Randy achieved “success” at UConn.
I always thought my alma mater was stuck with him for the long haul because he won games in a “classy” manner, and I NEVER thought a big time program – even if he wore a sign around his neck that said “I’ll work for food” - would hire him. At a big time program such as Maryland, in which athletics is of huge importance, I have to ask this question…did anyone at Maryland ever watch a UConn football game in which Randy Edsall was coach? Because if they did, I’d be stuck with him forever! I’m probably the only fan of a D1 program that can say this, but I was never more happy to see Paul Pasqualoni!
And now, the article as appeared on The Spendid Splitter back in September 2009:
CONNECTICUT FOOTBALL IS A JOKE
I’m hoping I generate a lot of readers on this because they need to understand that Connecticut Football is a joke.
I’m a huge UConn fan myself, but you have to get over the hype people…they’re never going to be anything special as long as Randy Edsall is at the helm.
The University of Michigan football program ought to be celebrating that they didn’t seriously grant Edsall an interview. Coach Rodriguez’s troubles are nothing compared to what Edsall would have done to that program talent-wise.
Watching the whole game against North Carolina, I’ll agree that UConn has a really good defense. However, you’re nine years into rebuilding and telling everyone you’re a premeire football program in the nation when really, UConn is no better than your local high school football team. The thing too is that they don’t have to be. They have some playmakers who are held back by our wonderful head coach.
I’m sick of it Edsall. I’m sick and tired of watching an anemic offense out on the field. If you’re going to run the ball everytime, fine. Go play against a high school team. It would be a great game and not the snooze-fest I’m used to seeing on offense from the Huskies.
UConn has a terrible excuse for a passing game. I love it (sarcasm people) – UConn’s passing game consists of two, three, of if they’re thinking big, seven yard passes! Somehow they think they can win like that at this level of college football.
It’s funny because they play in the same Division as Georgia, Florida, Texas, USC and somehow there’s Connecticutin that same division. In reality, if this program somehow makes a BCS Bowl sometime in the near future, they’re going to get smoked by quite possibly one of those aforementioned programs. As a fan, I know that since the BIG EAST is a weak conference, they’ll always have a shot at one. I cringe at the thought of UConn in a BCS Bowl game on National television. It would be a detriment to this program to get beat 43-0 in a high-stakes bowl game. The funny thing too is that if UConn could manage 20 passing yards in that game, it would be a moral victory, just like the BIG EAST title. More on that later.
Edsall gets mad that ESPN and news outlets always criticize his recruiting classes. The only kids he can get here are players with very minimal D-1 scholarships, or scholarships from other schools like Ohio and other joke D-1 colleges like that. While I respect every single player on the UConn team for going out there and making themselves into really good football players, as I fan I want to see a guy who comes in highly-touted. Basically, I want a reason to get excited about UConn football! Two or three star recruits are fine, but it’s been nine years and the most highly-touted UConn recruit before this year never played one game in a UConn uniform. (That’s Jarell Miller.)
Finally, UConn gets a hyped recruit in Dwayne Difton and a top-recruited QB transfer in Zack Frazier and they are utilized in the worst possible way. Difton has proven he can handle all those three-yarders that are thrown his way. The coaching staff wants Frazier to improve but how can he when you call plays that don’t let him open the field? UConn is the only program in the nation that can make good players look bad and bad players look good.
It’s to the point now where it’s impossible as a UConn fan to tolerate it. Wonder why fans come into games late? What’s the big deal? It’s not like they missed anything exciting. Maybe three series of run, run, punt, or run, two-yard pass, one-yard screen pass, punt. Yeah…suddenly the tailgating seems more of a good time correct me if I’m wrong.
This program needs to take the next step if it wants to compete. It needs to start throwing the ball. If they lose seven games because of it then fine. It’s actually progress for the next season and to show top-rated recruits that you’re willing to open up the field for them and let them make plays.
I’m sick of the high school offense approach to try and win games. I’ve been a UConn fan since they turned to D-1 and in the last four years, I can’t remember one exciting play in UConn history. D.J. Hernandez’s two-point conversion attempt is probably the most exciting thing in this program’s history (shocking it was a run from two-yards out).
Oh, and for those of you who want to point out that UConn won the BIG EAST two years ago…hahahaha, get over yourselves! UConn shouldn’t even count that after getting smoked, and I mean smoked, by the team they “shared” the title with that year. How do you think those “West Virginiajust scored again” jokes came about?
Go ahead and pride yourself on winning Bowl games against Toledo and Buffalo. That’s not saying much. Edsall has done as much as he possible can here at UConn. He has built this progam from obscurity to minute. It’s time to hire someone else to take the next step.
Look at Brian Kelly at Cincinnati. In roughly four years, that program is on it’s way to being special. Face it UConn fans, as long as Randy is at the helm, International Bowls are this programs peak.
A former person I worked with who has since left UConn once told me Edsall is a good coach and that he’s done wonderful things here. While I respect his opinion a helluva lot, you guys have to start looking at reality. He’s DONE wonderful things. He’s NOT DOING wonderful things anymore, nor will he BE DOING any wonderful things in the future.
I’m tired of the news reporters who cater to Edsall. Can anyhow have the “you know what’s” to go into today’s post-game conference and ask Coach why so many short yard passes? How does that help? Why can’t a receiver do a ten-yard curl route? Why can’t Difton go down field? Why, why, why can’t we throw the ball back-to-back plays?
The only guy not afraid to ask Randy the tough questions is Desmond Connor. He tried that last year with the Tyler Lorenzen situation at Syracuse. All he got was attacked and insulted. Thank God for people like Desmond.
Look, if UConn wants to keep up the way they constantly run the ball then fine. Just don’t expect people to come to the games anymore. You want people to support you? Show us a good reason why we shouldn’t come out to the next UConn football game without a pillow and a blanket. Oh, and Rhode Islanddoesn’t count.
I’m telling you UConn fans, don’t let this University fool you anymore with they’re marketing campaigns to come out and support your Huskies. It’s not fair to all you hard-working people out there for UConn to steal money from you by subjecting you to the worst offense performances you have ever seen. The worst thing is the offense gets worse and worse each year. UConn has some players to do big things. It’s about time Frazier, Difton, and Todman can go to work.
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By Laura Cannon |Email the author | Hamden Patch
A moment of silence opened the Hamden Fathers’ baseball game last week, the night the Scorpions, a team of 11- and 12-year-olds, learned that their coach, Carlos Gonzalez, had died.
The boys took the field with black armbands on the left sleeves of their light-blue uniforms, while coaches and parents wore black ribbons as a tribute to the 50-year-old Hamden resident who coached in the league for 17 years.
Gonzalez was awaiting a lung transplant when he died at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center on May 30. ”Los,” as his friends and players called him, was diagnosed with lung cancer in May 2009, even though he never smoked.
Over the years Gonzalez had gotten to know many players and their families, and many were introduced to him at the Hamden Fathers Opening Day ceremonies a month before his death.
He was a guest of honor and his daughter, Caitlin, spoke in support of Lungs for Los, a foundation set up to help his family pay their non-medical expenses. Supporters sold T-shirts and wristbands and collected donations throughout the season.
Gonzalez became a coach when his son, Justin, was a young child, and continued to volunteer long after Justin aged out of the league.
“When he first drafted my son,” says Jeff Rowe, “he was the only coach that called and asked to speak to my son – most coaches ask for the parents. He (Gonzalez) welcomed him to the team and told him what would be expected of him.”
Rowe’s son has played for the Scorpions for three years, and says that Gonzalez became “really more of a father figure than a coach” to the team.
The Scorpions consistently finish at the top of the standings in the Hamden Fathers “Majors Gold” league. But even opponents have fond memories of ’Los.
Scott Millea coached against Gonzalez for four years, and described him as “dedicated to the kids he coached, not just with baseball but academically…. A great mentor and role model.”
The coach stayed in touch with many of his former players, said Mary Lord, whose son is now 15 and was the 2011 Rookie of the Year at Hamden Hall.
“We lost a wonderful man,” she said at a Tuesday night “Lungs for ’Los” fundraiser at Eli’s on Whitney. “My son was a good athlete, but Carlos would also talk to him about doing well in school and being a better citizen.”
The restaurant was crowded with friends sharing memories, many of them just returning from Gonzalez’s wake earlier that evening.
Another former player, Matt Chudoba, became best friends with Justin Gonzalez through Carlos Gonzalez’s team and gave a eulogy at the funeral Mass Wednesday at St. Joan of Arc Church.
He was “extremely important in my life, beyond belief,” said Chudoba, who described himself as “Carlos’ second son.”
Matt and Justin, along with several other volunteers, will continued to coach the Scorpions this season.
Speaking from the Gonzalez family home Sunday night, Matt Chudoba said the family was “in shock” because Carlos had been doing well up until a few days before he died. Chudoba had been with the Gonzalez family in Pittsburgh.
Only days before his death New Haven Register reporter Ann DeMatteo wrote of his quest for a lung transplant and efforts to raise the necessary funds for that surgery.
“What was just as hard,” Chudoba said, was coming back to Hamden a few days later. At the apartment the family rented in Pittsburgh, “it wasn’t like we were going back to the memories…. but then (at home), he wasn’t there when we walked in the door.”
At Saint Joan of Arc church Wednesday morning, Chudoba told mourners the day he was drafted by Carlos “forever changed the course of my life,” describing him as “the greatest man I ever got to know.”
Chudoba’s own father died, also of lung cancer, in 2009. But like his father, Chudoba said, “just because you can’t physically see Coach doesn’t mean for a second lung cancer defeated him because it didn’t.”
Gonzalez’s legacy will live on through Hamden Fathers baseball; the Lungs for Los Foundation; and the Family House of Pittsburgh, the organizations his family has suggested for any memorial donations.
He is survived by his wife of 26 years, Cindy Gonzalez; daughter Caitlin and son Justin, as well as his mother Adela Gonzalez of Levittown, New York and sister Lissette Bisso of St. James, New York. He was born in Havana, Cuba in 1961 and was the son of the late Aurelio Gonzalez.
He was, as his “second son” described him, “a coach for everyone.”
“Lungs for Los” to Continue
“Now that ’Los has passed, the nature of the Foundation has changed,” says family friend Emily Unger. They’re now raising money “for other families and individuals that are in the same position.” Donations will go toward helping patients pay for expenses that are not covered by insurance.
For instance, the Gonzalez family had to move to Pittsburgh temporarily for the coach’s medical treatment.
“This would help people relocate,” according to Unger.
At least three more fundraisers are planned: A Fathers Day dinner on Friday, June 24th at the Dunbar Hill firehouse; an Orange Ale House Bar Day on Sunday, July 17th; and a pizza party at BAR in New Haven on Friday September 9th.
More information is at LungsforLos.com.
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On behalf of the entire Gonzalez family, I’d like to personally thank all of you for coming here today. My name is Matt Chudoba and you could call me Carlos’s second son. Ever since I was a toddler, I would dream of people I wanted to emulate when I got older. My ambitions started with a trash man – -looking back on it, some ambitions I had! As I grew older, my desire to be an ice cream truck driver took over, but when I saw the zamboni driver at the local hockey rink, oh how I longed to be him!
As I approached my teenage years, I started to understand that I should probably dream a little bigger. Turning on the TV one day, I saw exactly the person my mom and dad were talking about when they told me to be like someone who helps people, cleans up society, and that everyone knows is a role model. He was by far the leader of his team. He made sure that when somebody posed a threat, he confronted them. Most importantly, he never let anyone walk all over him. Yup, in a nutshell, that was Tommy the Green Power Ranger!
All throughout my elementary years, I swore to my parents that one day I would replace Tommy as the next Green Power Ranger. Little did I know that when I was in seventh grade and received a call from a certain person telling me that he was going to be my new baseball coach, this person speaking on the other end was in fact Tommy. As amazing as Tommy was on television, when he came into my life personally and I got to see him and learn from him on a daily basis, I was beyond spoiled.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, the Tommy that I got to know personally for the past eleven years and who became a father-figure in my life was Carlos Gonzalez. And, luckily for my parents, he saved their youngest son from running around the neighborhood in green tights picking up people’s trash and handing out ice cream. On second thought, forget about “luckily for my parents”! Luckily for me! Thank you Carlos!
On a serious note, the day that Carlos called me and informed me he was going to be my new baseball coach forever changed the course of my life. I am so blessed that at the young age of 14, this phone call introduced me to the greatest man I ever got to know. And yet, I almost threw it all away…
When that new baseball coach on the other end of the line informed me that he “drafted so-and-so”, I remember thinking to myself, “Is this guy OK? Dude, we are 14 years old and you’re using the word drafting like the pros do!” Since I was pretty much burnt out from playing baseball, I really wasn’t sure I wanted to play for any coach, let alone a guy who was drafting people!
I ended up missing the first two baseball practices that season and when my father found this out, he made sure I got there early to the third practice of the season. That’s when I shook his hand and met him face-to-face for the first time, my real life Green Power Ranger – yet I still didn’t know it.
Practice was actually pretty fun and I didn’t mind being there. In fact, I returned for the forth practice, never missing a practice or a game the rest of that season. Carlos made baseball so much fun that year that when baseball wasn’t happening, it was the worst part of the day, not being around Carlos or his son, my best friend, Justin. Carlos even allowed me to pitch, something I never did until this year, and I ended up becoming one of the top pitchers in the league. Life was great! We were winning and with each passing day, I was growing closer and closer to Carlos and Justin.
When the season ended, Justin and I continued to hang out. I used to suggest to Justin that we go over his house because it was the best of both worlds for me. I got to hang out with Justin and Carlos! We got so close that when it came time for the next baseball season, I had Babe Ruth coaches calling me and telling me that I needed to go to tryouts. When I told them I didn’t want too and wanted to play for Coach Carlos again, they informed me that there was a pretty significant chance that I wouldn’t be on his team.
Truth be told, I was scared that I wouldn’t be on Carlos’s team again, because after playing for Carlos the previous year, I knew I never wanted to play for any other person. I didn’t care if it was only a microscopic chance that I would be on his team again; it was a chance I was willing to take. When I told Carlos what was said to me, anyone who knows Carlos knows that he has a tendency to go on hilarious, memorable rants – and that’s exactly what he did.
That second season we had together was even more memorable then the first. It’s also the time Mr. Gonzalez , or Carlos, became known as just “Coach” to me. Whether it was on the field or at his house, he was “Coach”. When it got to be the middle of the winter after our second baseball season ended, Justin still was wondering why I was calling him “Coach”. I was 15 now and exhausted my eligibility playing under Coach, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t just my coach on the field. He became my life coach, one who I would go to for any advice or decision I needed help in making. I loved going to Coach for advice because not only was he a great listener, but he didn’t coddle me into telling me things such as “it’ll be alright”. Rather, he always gave comical, but very productive advice that still stays with me to this day.
Think about it: how many times have people said to us “it’ll be alright”? Probably so many times we can’t count. How many times have people given us advice such as, “Well what did you think was going to happen when you waited three weeks to call her and she doesn’t remember who you are?” If you’re wondering how that constitutes as advice, it’s plain and simple: Coach wanted you to be the aggressor. He never wanted you to be passive because that resulted in opportunities passing you by. And if you missed your opportunity, don’t expect him to say those three little words we hear oh so much – “it’ll be alright”. Instead it was, “suck it up and move on. We need you for the next one” – something that is my motto for the team I coach today.
During my freshman year at Notre Dame, a bunch of my friends wanted me to go out for the baseball team. Truth is, if I tried out, I most likely would have made it, but I didn’t care. When I said I never wanted to play for any other coach but Coach ever again, I meant it. Reflecting on this today, it was by far the best decision I ever made because it got me into the world of coaching at the young age of 15, and here I am at 24 still coaching, loving it more and more each year. Coach instilled this passion for coaching in me that would have never came to fruition if it wasn’t for him. In fact, he has taught me so much and shaped my coaching career that Notre Dame offered me their freshman job this past March. I turned it down because the thought of staying away from him all Little League season left butterflies in my stomach. Yet the fact that ND thought that highly of me is a huge reflection on Coach because I am a protégé of his, and everything I have learned has come from him. How ironic that the Notre Dame freshman baseball program twice tried to take me away from my mentor and twice they failed. As great as those opportunities would have been, and the fact that they were opportunities that I have wanted for so long – those opportunities wouldn’t have been as great as the opportunity to be around Coach.
To me, the word coach is the highest title you can give someone. Doctor is scholarly, attorney is flashy, and sir is too common. It’s not a title you can earn because you have completed many years of schooling or because of your gender. It’s the only title you can actually earn by being yourself. When I read the book Tuesday’s With Morrie, Mitch Album anoints Morrie with this title of “Coach”, while Mitch is referred to as “Player”. If you read the book, then you know how integral Morrie was to Mitch’s life. Morrie has lived a long, experienced life and passes his experiences on to Mitch, so that he may learn from them.
If I was to rewrite the book, the only thing I would change would be the title to Tuesday’s With Carlos. It’s so ironic that I came across this book in eighth grade, the same time I met my Coach, and every powerful sentence Albom was writing about Morrie was really me doing the writing about Carlos. Ironically, like Albom, I did major in journalism.
This identical match of Morrie/Mitch and Carlos/Matt is something that has always stuck with me throughout my 11 years getting to know Coach. He helped transform my life into the greatest life it could possibly be. After all, if it wasn’t for him, I was headed for a life of green tights and smelly nights! So Justin, and all my friends sitting here today, that is reason I have referred to him as “coach” for all these years. He has coached me for 11 years on how I can not only be the best person in the world, but how I can become the best coach in the world to others not only in baseball, but in life as well.
In this story full of ironies, the only thing that could hinder Mitch’s ability to physically see his “coach” every day was a terminal illness. The only thing that has hindered my ability to physically see the two greatest men I have ever known, my father and Coach, was also a terminal illness, in both cases lung cancer. Similar to Morrie and my father, just because you can’t physically see Coach doesn’t mean for a second lung cancer defeated him because it didn’t. Nothing, especially his cancer, can take away everything Carlos has brought to his beautiful wife Cindy, stunning daughter Caitlin, the greatest friend a person can ask for, his son Justin, my life, or anyone’s life that Coach has appeared in, whether it was for a few seconds or many years.
The title “Coach” will never mean so much to any other person the way it meant to Los. His ability to be a successful baseball coach, while being an even greater life coach is something that, as hard as I try to emulate, will never be able to. There is a reason that so many of his players, or players he never even coached but just talked to attended the wake yesterday or are in attendance here today. He wasn’t just a Coach for me, but a coach for everyone involved in Hamden Fathers and anyone he encountered away from the game as well.
No matter if you were shy, or outgoing, a captain or the number 12 batter, Coach treated everyone as a treasure. He honestly believed each player he coached or person he met was special. Even if his team blew an eight run lead, struck out seven times in a row, or finished the season with a 1-15 record, he still believed his team was the best. I guess that’s what liking the Mets for 30 years will do to you. After all, there wasn’t anything his Little Leaguers could do that left him scratching his head. The Mets already took care of that!
It’s tough to bring this eulogy to a close because this is only a very, very, very, small fraction of how much Coach has meant to me. I just hope that the next time a player refers to his coach as “Coach”, or turns on the TV and sees a Green Power Ranger, that they understand that the best coach/Power Ranger a player, a person, or a program could possibly ask for is Carlos Gonzalez.
Entrenador, te quiero mucho, mucho mas te lo que tu sabias. Tu eres mi angel y yo
siempre vivire en tu imagen. Nunca podre pagarte lo que hiciste por mi.
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There are wins that make any coach proud. There are loses that you can take solace in the fact that at least you played well – like last Monday’s against Rochambeau. And then there are loses like this Monday’s, also against Rochambeau, that are back-breaking and potentially season-crushing loses.
If you read my Facebook status Monday night, then you know I was beyond pissed off and extremely disappointed that we blew a seven run lead in the last inning against Rochambeau in an eventual 13-12 loss.
It’s not easy to write this blog because if I wrote what was going through my mind all night, my emotions would have gotten best of me. I’m more upset about the fact that I had to leave the game at 5:00 Monday to get to a 5:30 meeting. Along the way, I kept getting good texts from Coaches Greg and Mark. It made my drive back to West Haven as pleasurable as it could possibly be – seeing that I had to leave a game early – knowing that the score was 7-5 Great Oak when I left and now it increased to 12-5 after the top of the seventh!
In fact, when I arrived at my meeting, the 20 other people there asked me how the game went. I told them I had to leave when it was 7-5, but now it was 12-5 so I think we’ll be alright. That led to jokes by those in attendance at the meeting to say things such as, “You know what that means, right? You can’t be there next time. They seem to do better without you!”
It was awesome. They laughed. I laughed…and I was just waiting for one of the coaches to text me and tell me that it was official – we had won. Even Dylan, who I was texting score updates to, was excited and told me to text him after we won. Put it this way, knowing we had this huge lead made it easier to tolerate this meeting.
I would say about 20 minutes into the meeting, I hadn’t heard from the coaches regarding an update. It was one-of-two things, I thought. One: They didn’t want to text me during the meeting. Two: We were having a little trouble closing the game out. Regardless if it was one or two, I still was expecting to get a text imminently saying that we won 12-10 or something like that.
Ten minutes later, I got a text from Coach Greg saying it was 12-12. Keep in mind, I’m a half-hour into an hour-long meeting, my team apparently just blew a seven run lead, and I don’t know if it’s a joke the coaches are trying to play on me or if it was reality. There was nothing I could do but keep sending texts back to Coach Greg wanting to know what happened.
The next text I got from Coach Greg was that we lost 13-12. Losing for me is never easy, even if we play our best possible game and lose by circumstances beyond our control. Having it in the back of my mind that the coaches were joking with me, I wasn’t as upset as I was when I found out it was indeed true.
When my meeting ended, I stormed out and called Coach Greg immediately. He said we did in fact lose, and it happened so quick that it was even hard to remember what happened. He told me that Chris started to tire – he had come in in the third inning to replace Alex and shut out the beast known as Rochambeau for four innings – and we were in trouble. We turned to Preston and he just got lit up.
Rochambeau is a type of team where you can’t throw a fast pitcher at. That’s exactly what Preston is, and I knew that if we had to go to our two aces – Matty M. and Preston– this game, I hoped it would be really late. If it was any other team, Preston would have dominated. It’s just that Rochambeau is such a huge, fastball-crushing team, that even Aroldis Chapman and his 106-MPH-fastball would have had trouble getting the Rochambeau hitters out.
So the story goes that there were some plays we could have made in the last inning that we didn’t, but what it ultimately came down to was that Rochambeau just hit the stuffing out of the ball. Still, in my mind, I just couldn’t fathom how we blew a seven run lead even with them hitting the stuffing out of the ball. My team does that as well, but even when we do, one of those shots is going to be caught. I just couldn’t understand how we couldn’t have gotten outs on any of those hits.
Again, I wasn’t there so putting the blame on anyone would have made it unfair. I will be honest, however, that in the heat of the moment after I found out what happened, I did try to blame someone, but it was never Coach Mark or Coach Greg. I did yell at them both and tell them that I wasn’t blaming them, I just was going over the questions in my head I needed answered and if it came across like I was blaming them, I really wasn’t.
Fair or unfair, someone had to take responsibility for this loss – which at the time I told both coaches could be a season altering for-all-the-wrong-reasons type of loss – and I put the blame on the captains. I just couldn’t understand how they didn’t bring the team together and calm them down. “How could they let this happen?”, I thought. Purely selfish, I made the decision Monday night that the three captains weren’t starting on Tuesday against rival Seymour. If that didn’t send a message to the team when they saw the three active-captains sitting against their rival, than I didn’t know what would. When I tell you I was beyond pissed off, I was rip-roaring mad.
At that time, my emotions were clearly clouding my rational judgment. It took an hour phone conversation with Coach Greg to calm me down. He told me that it was unfair to blame the captains because there wasn’t anything they could have done, and if I needed to blame anyone, then blame both he and Mark. It was an eye-opener for me because to place blame on someone when nobody was to blame would have been the worst possible thing I could have done. I’m just so competitive and I can’t stand losing that I was just looking anywhere I could to make an excuse for this loss.
During the phone conversation with my buddy, Coach Greg, I explained to him that a loss like this is so hard to take because we don’t have anything to look forward to once the season ends. I told him that I was tired of people devaluing middle school baseball as less important than Little League and high school. Yet as we talked, we both helped each other understand that middle school is probably the toughest to coach because it’s the first time the players play on a bigger diamond, and to think that last than a year ago the majority of our team was playing on a small diamond, all things considered, the transition has been rather seamless.
As bad as the loss was, for six innings, we dominated Rochambeau. We totally had our way with them. We jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the top of the first on a double by Matty M., a walk by Preston and Dan, a passed ball and an error on Mike’s groundball by the shortstop.
We increased our lead to 7-0 after the top of the second when Dan unleashed a two-run ground-rule double, Timmy had a run-scoring single, and we scored on a passed ball. Rochambeau ended up getting one run back in the bottom of the second, but Gunnar made a remarkable catch in center field that limited the damage. The ball was absolutely smoked, but Gunnar tracked the ball right off the bat, got a terrific jump and made the ever-incredible over-the-shoulder catch.
Brian Scalabrine
We went scoreless in the top of the third, and Alex was back out there for the bottom half. Other than the well-hit ball that Gunnar caught, Alex continued his comedic act with the Rochambeau hitters. If Alex was throwing a beach ball and the Rochambeau hitters had an ocean to hit it in, they wouldn’t have been able to against Alex. The junk he was throwing had them looking like Brain Scalabrine trying to guard Lebron James.
Unfortunately for us, the weather conditions made for a really muddy mound, and Alex’s cleats kept getting caught in the mud. Because of this, Alex kept losing his balance and started issuing walks in the bottom of the third. When the score got to be 7-5, the decision was made; we were going with our other junkballer, Chris.
Chris came in and got out of the inning. I knew it was a matter of time before Rochambeau’s bats awakened and they struck for a big inning. I figured that if their big inning was the bottom of the third and we still came out of it with the lead, we just might be alright. Yet when we had second and third with no outs in the top of the fourth and our three, four and five hitters all struck out, I was not too happy. We just couldn’t afford to get no runs with two guys in scoring position. All we needed was some form of contact from the hitters to advance the runners.
To squash my uneasiness, Chris shut down the foe in the bottom of the fourth. It was time for me to depart at this point. I departed on a good note, so at the end of the day, regardless of the outcome, I have that mental moment to find comfort in.
With the emotions having passed and clear-thinking having taken back over, we took the best team we are going to play to the ledge twice. Still, I couldn’t help but shake the thought that maybe the team would just cave in after a loss like this. However – what was music to my ears – I heard that the baseball team was absolutely silent on the bus ride home. I heard they were – like myself – beyond pissed off and extremely disappointed. Coach Greg told me he had to drive Adam, Jeff and Dan home, and the topic of conversation throughout the ride was how bad they wanted to destroy Seymour.
As crony as it may sound, sometimes the game of baseball is all about learning life’s lessons. I’m still learning this myself, but in reality, if this helps the team overcome something down the line, then it’s all worth it. Who knows, it may be something as simple as ensuring they go hard to the end. I know from my own experience in college, it’s easy to tank a final if you’re guaranteed an “A” in the class. Anyone can take the short-cuts life has to offer, but how does that prove something to yourself? Go hard to the end, regardless if you clinch an “A” in the class or you’re up seven runs in the last inning of a game. When it’s all said and done, it’s difficult to move past the woulda’s, coulda’s and shoulda’s because that means you coulda, shoulda, or wished you woulda done better. In the words that Nike has adopted as their motto, “Just Do It.”
What a great time to be playing our rivals. Sorry Seymour,
-Matt-
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Sometimes a simple benching will go a long way. After Tuesday’s game when I ripped the team about their attitude, I vowed there was going to be changes on Wednesday. Sure enough, it was time to send a message to the team that attitude issues were just not going to be tolerated anymore. In fact, I went so far as to tell the team that if they act up or throw the bats again, I’m reporting them to Mr. Bell because I’m sick of it.
As a mix of a sulking attitude and looking lost at the plate – more of the later than the former – Wednesday was a perfect time to bench Dale. Hands down, when you evaluate every player on the team, in terms of how easy it comes for him, Dale is most likely the best player on the team. When he wasn’t in the lineup for Wednesday’s game, I think the team actually saw that they were focusing more on each puzzle piece than the completed thing.
The way they responded against Woodbury on Wednesday – especially after the whole Dylan incident when we could have just unraveled – was remarkable. It was a complete 360° turn around from Tuesday.
I wasn’t going to go on Joseph Stalin on them on Wednesday and be like, “You missed the ball, OK you’re out. You struck out, OK you’re out.” For those of you familiar with high school basketball, I wasn’t going to go all Vinny from ND-Fairfield on them. Granted I was distracted, but I wanted to keep the mood around the team rather light so that they could get back to having fun.
I told the team from the start of the season that I wanted to focus on pitching and defense this year. Well, in the last two games, that’s exactly what was on display. Starting with Wednesday against Woodbury, Adam – pitching all of one inning for us in any game so far – ended up pitching six innings of two earned-run baseball on 108 pitches in an eventual 10-5 victory. It was exactly what we needed at the time because we honestly had no other pitcher available.
Adam just has it in him that he never wants to disappoint. No matter if I put him at catcher, third, shortstop, pitcher or the outfield, he always gets the job done. He could have let his current struggles at the plate distract him on the mound on Wednesday, but that’s just not Adam.
Capitalizing on the momentum from the day before, Chris started on the mound on Thursday – also against Woodbury – and matched Adam’s pitching performance to a T. He gave up one run in five innings on 83 pitches, but more importantly, had just two walks in our 9-1 victory. It hasn’t been an easy ride for Chris so far this season on the mound, but in the last two games he showed why he can be a number one pitcher. He has a vicious curveball that kept the Woodbury hitters off balance all day on Thursday. Watching him fool the Woodbury hitters time and time again was like watching a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus act.
As we go forward in this season, Chris is going to need to be a big part of what we need on the mound. This was a huge confident booster for him. Even when he struggled earlier in the season I reminded him that he wasn’t getting shelled by any team. The reason they were scoring on him was because of walks. Sure enough, the last six innings he has pitched have yielded only two walks. It’s no coincidence that now when he’s starting to issue less walks, he’s dominating. Chris’s only complaint yesterday was he wanted to keep going, but 83 pitches was more than sufficient, even though I knew he could have kept going.
Because of the team’s performance the last two days, we were able to get everyone involved in the action. Matty G. started at second base on Wednesday, played all game and collected a hit and RBI to go along with a walk and solid defense. He even pitched two shut-out innings on Thursday!
Tommy made his debut at catcher and did awesome. The backstop at Great Oak is so huge that if you hit a foul ball behind you, you need to hit it home run distance in order to reach the backstop fence. Tommy – his first time on the big diamond at catcher – caught the last four innings on Wednesday and did a great job of blocking the ball and throwing down to second. He even caught a foul pop which is even harder at our field because of the enormous backstop. Add in the fact that he had an RBI and also caught two innings on Thursday and he’s only in sixth grade!
Cole started on Wednesday and grounded out in his only at bat. However, on Thursday, there was a very high flyball hit to Cole in right field that was moving in the wind but Cole caught it, certainly not an easy play. The kid is fearless at the dish and makes it hard to keep his bat out of the lineup. There isn’t a pitch he can’t hit!
Alex has started at EH the past two games and has done nothing but hit and/or get on base. Alex is very baseball smart. Other than making occasional mistakes on 0-2 pitchers and getting too much of the plate, he understands the game. We had a runner on third with two outs on Thursday and I wanted Alex to steal. Alex, who has absolutely zero speed, didn’t end up stealing because he didn’t see the sign (thanks Coach Mark), and when he came in after the inning I go, “You know what I wanted you to do, right? He said, “Yeah, I was planning to get in a run-down so the run could score but I never got the sign.” That’s a kid who understands the game.
As for the regulars, Dale didn’t play at all on Wednesday but batted in the nine hole on Thursday and had two well-hit balls. Matty M. and Preston continue to rake, especially Preston, whose only outs seem to be hit 280 feet. Dan has been our most consistent player all season and hasn’t showed any signs of slowing down. He is absolutely ripping the ball, unleashing vicious hits up the middle. Mike, even with his achy back, is starting to hit bombs as well and factor that in with his amazing defense. Gunnar has moved to the lead-off sport and has thrived. It seems like everything Jeff does is done quietly because of who he bats between but all he does is put the ball in play and do good things. Timmy is struggling right now, but showed signs of life on Thursday.
We got the heavy hitters come Monday and Tuesday – Rochambeau part two and then rival Seymour. It’s time to bring it,
-Matt-
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Anyone who has never coached a game before probably anticipates the worst part of coaching is when you’re losing. They’re right to a certain extent, but an incident like what happened in pre-game activities on Wednesday is one million times worse than any losing streak can make any coach feel.
I won’t lie; I was frustrated all day on Wednesday about what was our current losing streak and wanted to get a win against Woodbury more than anything. Yet, it’s just so crazy that what was on my mind all day changed in a less than a split-second. Similar to a hitter expecting a fastball, the hitter’s whole approach during the at bat changes when the pitcher throws him a curve.
I was the hitter at bat on Wednesday expecting a fastball – that fastball being for us to right the ship and get a much-needed when. Life, in this case the pitcher, had other ideas and threw me a curve at the most inappropriate time. Then again, when you’re the hitter, is there ever an appropriate time when you want to see a curve?
During warm-ups, a freak accident occurred in left field. I was hitting flyballs to the outfield and Dylan was the left fielder. On the last flyball I was to hit at Dylan, something happened, and the flyball hit Dylan straight in the face. We don’t know what that something was that caused him to miss it. He could have lost it in the sun or he could have looked away at the last second thinking he heard someone call for it. Talking with Dylan after the game, we just don’t know what happened.
Granted, whatever the reason was that caused him to miss the ball, it didn’t change the fact that he got hit in the face. I’ve seen a player get hit in the head with a flyball before, but usually they need a couple of seconds before they get up and try to shake it off. Yet, Dylan wasn’t doing that and my heart dropped. I hauled my ass out to help him not knowing what to expect, and still not knowing where the ball had precisely hit him.
When I got to him, I saw steady drips of blood on the grass. He was very calm – all things considered – but he kept complaining his vision was really blurry and his eye hurt. When he said his eye hurt, all I could think about was the Luis Salazar incident – the coach for the Atlanta Braves who suffered a significant eye injury. When I saw Dylan’s injury and saw him looking at me with the damaged eye, expecting something like the Salazar incident and not seeing it, I know that’s why I was reassured and knew he was going to be OK.
The eye sustained a cut just under the brow and it was very swollen. I’m no optometrist, but considering what I was preparing myself for, I knew we had dodged a bullet. I know with eye injuries it’s important to keep the pressure in the eye down. I needed to make sure he remained calm and didn’t elevate pressure in the eye because if he did, the bullet we just dodged would have ricocheted back and struck us.
He kept mentioning that his vision was blurry, but I assured him that was totally normal. It was the body’s defense mechanism for dealing with this injury. I told him I saw the eye – and I promised to him I wasn’t lying when I said this – and it’s not as bad as it feels. Whether that reassured him or not, I really don’t know, but nevertheless, his ability to stay calm was incredible.
The thing about Dylan is he just is an amazing kid. I’ve been lucky to coach him for going on two years now, and everything I have thrown at the kid has been handled with the utmost dignity and class. Dylan didn’t get a lot of playing time last season because his second base position was blocked by an eighth grader, yet that never stopped him from being a leader in the dugout and in practice. Keep in mind, he was doing all of this on a predominantly eighth grade team.
At the start of this season, he had the inside track to become the starting second baseman. Unfortunately, Dale got injured to a point where he could only play second base, and in order for Dylan to get playing time, I needed to move him to the outfield – a position he’s never played before.
Dylan, one of my four eighth grader captains, could have chosen to sulk about this, but he didn’t. Instead, he chose to bust his ass and be the best left fielder he could be. In the five games he played in left field, you would have thunk he played there all his life in the way he easily adapted to the position.
Especially during this time when I have written about our team members blaming someone else for their own shortcomings, Dylan never blamed Dale for getting injured. He never blamed me for not putting him at shortstop. He did what the most successful people in life do: he had an opportunity – and maybe not the most ideal situation for him – and made the best of it. In other words, he sucked it up and moved on from his second base days. I mean, is that not awesome or what?
Other than taking him out of close games in the later innings as a defensive replacement for Owen – the best defensive outfielder on the team – the move to the outfield for Dylan was perfect. It was an opportunity to get his bat into the lineup and he was making some of the difficult plays look easy. It even got to the point where he even told me he kind-of liked left field!
Of course, after this whole incident, I couldn’t help but kick myself for moving him off of second base. I also couldn’t help but think that maybe the reason he missed the ball was because I told the outfielders they needed to do a better job of catching the ball and Dylan, doing what Dylan does best, took that to heart and didn’t want to let me down. That’s the kind of person Dylan is – as long as others are happy, he’s happy.
For lack of a better terminology, if we had the perfect mascot for what I want this team to be, it would be Dylan. He’s a remarkable captain who leads by example. He’s the total team player and picks up others when they are down. He goes out of his comfort zone to make sure his teammates are happy. Whether on the field or the bench, you can always hear him encouraging his teammates on. And – what is Dylan to a tee – if he strikes out or misses a ball, he’s over it right then and there and moves on.
Nothing against anyone else on the team, but if they all had a little Dylan in them, perhaps we’d not have suffered an emotional letdown like we did against Jockey Hollow. Part of what I mentioned in Wednesday’s blog was about the team looking in the mirror and realizing it’s their fault, not someone else’s. Well you know what, Dylan is that mirror.
So yeah, anyone who says losing is the worst part of coaching, you’re right to a certain extent – until this happens. Add in the fact that I still had to coach a game afterward when all I could think about was Dylan. I’ll tell you one thing, no losing streak could have made me feel as bad as I did for Dylan after his injury.
If there was any bit of salvation – if you want to even call it that – we won 10-5 behind Adam’s incredible pitching performance. As the team so eloquently put it, we won it for Dylan. That we did, only when I talked to Dylan after the game, he only wished he could have been a physical part of the victory, not an emotional part. And when the eye doctor told him he suffered a significant eye injury and can’t resume baseball activities for at least five days, his response was, “How come”? Yup, is that Dylan or what?
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What a difference a day makes. Not every day is better than the day it replaced, and that sure was the case for the Great Oak Spartans baseball team Tuesday afternoon against Jockey Hollow. Whether it was an emotional letdown because the team we were playing didn’t say “Rochambeau” on its uniform, or a pothole on the road we are traveling, I don’t know. What I do know – and the team was the one to say it – is that we believe we lost to an inferior team on Tuesday.
After the first victory against Memorial – which right now seems like eons ago – I wrote a blog entry entitled Day 17: Calm Before the Storm or Storm Before the Calm? In that blog entry, I wrote specifically about overcoming adversity. I predicted this was going to happen; it was inevitable that we were going to lose. The thing I didn’t have an answer to – but had an idea of – was how the team would respond when the going got tough.
It’s not the end of the world and I don’t want to make a bigger issue out of it then it is because maybe it was a one game fluke, but the idea I referenced in the last paragraph was that this team would hit a few potholes and continue on. On this road known as Great Oak Spartans baseball, there is one thing I’m sure of and can rule out: We are not going to miss every pothole and smooth sail the rest of the way.
Again, it’s only six games into the season, and if you told me at the beginning of the season we’d be 4-2 after our first six games, after last year’s debacle, I would have gladly signed up for it. This team is too awesome of a team to play the way they played on Tuesday afternoon. Like I have previously stated on my blog: no matter the record, I always believe my team is the best, and I know that to be above and beyond true for this group of kids. With that said, I know why the wheels loosened on Monday and fell off on Tuesday.
I’m not putting this entirely on the team because I need to do a better job of coaching myself. My motto is to be aggressive and when I needed to be aggressive the most on Tuesday, I cowered. In the last inning, down 6-5, Owen was standing on first base with no outs. Hindsight is 20/20, but what I’m kicking myself about is not having Owen steal second and have Adam bunt him to third. I elected not to steal Owen because I didn’t want to risk him getting thrown out, something that happened earlier in the game. After Adam struck out and Matty M. flied out to deep center, Owen stole second with ease, but by that time it was too late.
I know I have to suck it up and move on – and I will – but if I played to the situation instead of thinking “what could have been”, Owen would have stolen second, got to third on Adam’s bunt, tagged up on Matty’s fly ball and scored rather easily to tie the game. I should have taken the blinders off and realized that Adam is struggling right now, but I’ve seen Adam do some remarkable things with the bat and I didn’t want to take the bat out of his hands in that situation.
Part of being a good coach is reacting to the situation and not letting the “what could have been” get the best of you. I certainly dropped the ball on that Tuesday afternoon. I’m not saying that my decision – or lack thereof – cost us the game on Tuesday, but it certainly could have helped us tie it.
The bottom line is that we didn’t do a lot of things right on Tuesday. We haven’t had a game where everyone in the lineup has hit. We’ve had a few players step up and carry the load, but now they’re slumping while the others are starting to heat up. We haven’t had a game where the lineup is entirely on the same page.
Our defense has been atrocious the past two games – and that’s being nice. Standard, routine, easy groundballs are being booted! It’s funny because the plays we shouldn’t be making we are making, and the one’s we should be making – the standard, routine, soft groundballs – are going right through us or getting bobbled.
A few blogs ago, I talked about the outfield, and how in upcoming games, balls were going to be hit to them. That has held true the past three games and the outfield defense has been no better than the infield defense. Plain and simple, we are bad at judging fly balls. It’s one thing if the ball hits the glove and drops out, but its another thing if you call for it, think you size it up, and the ball doesn’t even hit your glove!
There have been mistakes on the base paths but I can forgive those. I’m fine with the team being aggressive on them. Especially now, when no one can seem to get on base, it’s like they feel the need to get to third so they can score on a passed ball. I can’t necessarily blame them for that.
I briefly mentioned hitting before, but we aren’t picking up the ball well at all right now. Unfortunately for us, the pitchers we have been facing aren’t walking us. When we were averaging 16 runs a game thorough our first four games, pitchers were walking us with ease. It’s no coincidence that in the past two games when we’ve hardly walked, our runs per games average is cut to 6.5. Does that mean that walks have accounted for 40% of our runs?
However, all of those things are not the reason I believe the wheels fell off on Tuesday. What I will not tolerate – and until Wednesday’s game I have not acted on it – is the attitude on the team so far. I’ve tried to create this motto where it’s not about me, myself or I; rather, it’s about the team. Much to my dismay, it’s been more about the former than the later recently. It’s easy to overlook something like that when we’re winning, but now that we’re losing, it needs to be rectified.
I’m tired of the selfishness. I’m not one to take kindly to praising myself, but I have done a decent job at staying true to my words of “sucking it up and moving on”. After an error or a strikeout happens, once I say my piece, I’ve over it. I can wholeheartedly say I’ve been better at doing that then I thought I would be. If I can do it, there’s no reason the team can’t.
Even during the post-game meeting on Tuesday, it wasn’t so much the loss I was ticked off about as it was the reason in which I believed we lost. I ripped into them about the selfishness of them. There’s too much blaming of the umpire. There’s way too much sulking. There’s way too much feeling sorry for themselves. There’s certainly a time and place where all those all acceptable, just not in a team atmosphere. More specifically – not on this team.
I’m tired of the backward K’s and then throwing a fit or helmet and blaming it on the umpire. It’s bittersweet – for obvious reasons both good and bad – to hear the team say things such as, “That team sucks. We are so much better than them. I can’t believe we lost to them. How the heck did we lose to them?” I’m tired of the always blaming someone else for what is entirely our fault. Again, it goes back to the whole concept of being selfish and making it all about me, myself and I. Sometimes the best remedy comes from within, and if the team ever took the time to look in the mirror, they’d see the obvious reason why they are struggling. They’re holding the other team, the umpire, or other teammates accountable for their own shortcomings these past three games.
I will continue to beat into this team the concept of a team. If changes are needed – and if this continues I will make changes – whatever those changes are, I will make them. As I said from the get-go, I’m here to win. If the players don’t like the changes, I’ll know by their reaction if they are a team player. If they bitch and moan and blame me, well then it’s all about themselves and we’re back to square one about always blaming someone else. Rather than get upset at me, do something about it. I was afraid of losing the team last year and I ignored those changes, but I swear to you that won’t happen again. If they understand the changes and do something about them, then I’ll know they are team players.
I don’t want people to take that the wrong way and view it as a threat. If we just get back to having fun instead of pressing – like they’re doing now – then we’ll be back on the road in no time. It’s tough for me to yell at these kids because they are a special group, but if I’m having fun – even after these two loses – then there is no reason they shouldn’t be as well. If we put the egos aside, and focus on the completed puzzle instead of just one piece, we’ll be fine.
As with every dark cloud, there’s a silver lining. I don’t believe we’ve played our best game this season and we are still two games above .500%. Even as we were mercying teams, I still don’t think we have come close to our capabilities. I wouldn’t make a promise I couldn’t keep, so I promise you all that we’ll be able to look back on these two games and laugh about it when it’s all said and done and we have completed a successful season.
Bear with us and we’ll get through this,
-Matt-
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I never knew a joyous loss existed. I’m here to win people; I hate losing. Yet, sometimes you need to take a step back and appreciate effort, regardless of a win or a loss. I swear, when Rochambeau was getting off the bus, they were in order of height. The first kid who walked off the bus was huge and the last guy who walked off was taller than me. One of their players even had a beard!
Seeing all these behemoths – and I mean that in a nice way – brought me back to my eighth grade days. I don’t think I owned a razor till sophomore year of high school! It is quite fair to say that they intimidated us, but we’re called the Spartans for a reason: we will go into any battle against machine guns and muskets, but the opponents are going to need to fire canons at us before it’s all said and done.
Our nickname isn’t the Ravens, Eagles or Cheetahs. We don’t fly or run as fast as we can away from our opponent. We are the Spartans, and ancient Greece would have been beyond proud of the battle the Great Oak Spartans fought yesterday.
Plain and simple: On looks alone, they were Goliath and we were David. As we were watching Goliath warm-up, I tried to keep David loose and let David know that the bigger Goliath is, the harder Goliath falls. Plain and simple, my message to the team in the pre-game huddle was to go out there and have fun. I told them there was a difference between going out there and pressing and going out there and having fun.
By no means was it an easy decision, but I decided to start Matty M. on the mound against King Kong. I really thought about starting Alex Sunday night and Monday morning because I had a feeling they were going to be a good hitting team and wouldn’t fare so well against slower stuff, but after speaking with the assistant coaches, we were all in a consensus to go with Matty.
Let’s put it this way: The way King Kong came out hitting in the first inning, even Naomi Watts wouldn’t have been able to tame this beast. Regardless of the fact that they were crushing the ball, we ended up getting out of the first inning giving up only one run after we put-out the batter trying to stretch his moon shot into a triple. The put-out from Dylan-Adam-Preston was executed picture-perfectly and definitely fired the team up to slay the beast against us.
To get the team even more fired up, we took the lead in the bottom of the first after we scored two runs. Matty M. had a double and scored after Dan reached on an error. Dan ended up scoring on Mike’s single.
To say the team was excited and confident after they took the lead was an understatement. You could see it in their eyes that they knew they could hang with the big boys. Matty was back on the hill in the top of the second and got a one-two-three inning.
This got the Spartans even more fired up. The thing about this team is that they show their emotions in such a good way. You can see that they want to win so bad and truly believe that no one is better than them. Even when they got a standard out on Monday, they were pumped up and screaming. No matter how hard and for how long you practice, it’s hard to teach emotion because its practice, and it’s hard to show emotion in practice. The team made yesterday’s game feel like a playoff game – on a Monday nonetheless – and it was just incredibly awesome.
We went down scoreless in the bottom of the second, and the battle still favored us by a run. Matty was back on the hill for the top of the third with Rochambeau’s top of the order coming up. Not that it mattered if it was the top of the order since everyone on that team mine as well have been a number four batter. Anyhow, they came out swinging, but again, with the amount of runs they should have gotten, our defense came through and only allowed them to get one run as they turned an inning-ending double play. The team ran off the field beyond fired up and I could just feel that we were in for such a memorable and special game.
We went down scoreless in the bottom of the third. I asked Matty how he was feeling and he said he was ready to go another inning so I sent him back out there. Matty wasn’t striking them out, but he was throwing strikes and the majority of hits they got off him had a chance to be caught. Still, I couldn’t help myself from being nervous, but in order to try to shake the nerves, I joked with Coach Greg that there is no way we’re going to beat this team 3-2. We both laughed and got ready for the top of the fourth.
The top of the fourth is where the opponent got the upper-hand in our battle. The Great Wall of China loaded the bases against Matty with zero outs. They ended up getting a walk and took the lead 3-2. It was time for a pitching change so I brought in Chris. Again, not an ideal time to bring in a new pitcher, especially against a team like the Incredible Hulk, but we had no choice. Chris struggled a bit on the mound – but to his defense was squeezed a little bit by the umpire – and I could see by the expression on his face that he was frustrated.
After it got to be 6-2, with the bases still loaded and no outs, we broke out our grenade launcher in this battle. Enter Alex. Welcome to the game kid…now shut them down and get the momentum back to us! Andre the Giant was so far out in front of Alex it was comical. Alex got the first batter he faced to pop-out to short and induced another inning ending double-play to limit the damage.
When the Spartans were slowly jogging off the field, a difference between earlier in the game when they were running, you can see the emotion that they were showing all game starting to temper. I called them in for a huddle and told them that after that long, probably 25 minute half-of-inning, it was only 6-2. Someone asked, “Really, that’s it?” and you could just see that positive energy come right back to this team. They were pumped up and screaming in the dugout during our half of the fourth.
It’s common nature that in every battle, momentum wavers from side to side. Well, in the bottom of the fourth, Alex’s performance on the mound helped Mr. Momentum establish a new address – with us.
Os (Dan) led off the bottom of the fourth with a double and the fire, maybe just an expression during the huddle, became real again. Mike’s single advanced Dan to third. After a stolen base by Mike, we had second and third with no outs. Timmy hit a sac-fly that scored Dan and the lead was cut to three. Alex-ander the Great followed that with a single scoring Mike and cutting the lead to two. The dugout and parents acted like they just won the lottery. It gave me goosebumps. After Preston roped a single down the third base line to give us first and second with one out, Gunnar flew out to center.
It was up to Owen, our number nine batter to deliver. Owen dropped down a perfect bunt, made the pitcher rush his throw and he overthrew the bag. Owen was safe and two runs were in! If the fans acted like they won the lottery when the last run scored, they acted like they won the lottery a second time this time! Even I couldn’t contain myself, as my emotion got the best of me and I started pumping up my arms and yelling, “Come on”!
With Owen standing on second base, the tying run was just 180 feet away with Adam up. Adam worked a walk and Matty was up. Matty grounded out to shortstop to end the inning, with the throw just beating him to the bag. It would have been nice for him to have been called safe, but the battleship had been righted this inning and made for smoother sailing the rest of the way.
Alex continued his comedic act against Mt.Everest’s hitters in the top of the fifth. To get further momentum on our side, Mike threw out a runner stealing to which Dale yelled out, “They aren’t stealing on you anymore”! The fire on our side was burning right threw the brick-houses known as Rochambeau. Even their coach – who probably doesn’t have to coach at all because of his superior talent to most teams – must have started to get nervous because he called his team in for a huddle. All I heard him say was, “I don’t know why we’re acting defeated…” Just for him to say that, I knew we got to them.
Further proof that they were nervous was that in the bottom of the fifth, Rochambeau put in a new pitcher who could have started for a varsity baseball program. We were down just one at this point, but with the way he was throwing, that run mine as well have been 100 runs. If this were the battle field, he’d have been their cannon.
Dale led off the bottom of the fifth with a walk, stole second and third, and scored on a passed ball to knot the game at 6-6. This kid was throwing so hard that our four, five and six batter’s all struck out. However, as knowledge dictates, the harder you throw, the harder it is to locate the ball, and lucky for us, that’s exactly what he had trouble doing this fifth inning.
Rochambeau regained the lead in the top of the sixth and we went quietly in the bottom half. Nevertheless, Alexander the Great shut down Godzilla in the top of the seventh. When our team ran off the field after the top of the seventh, I huddled them up and told them that there is nothing sweeter than a walk-off win. They responded in two ways, with the first being a “together” chant and the second being the bottom of the seventh.
In the bottom of the seventh, down one run, Adam worked a leadoff walk, stole second and advanced to third on a passed ball. After Matty struck out, Adam, the tying run, was standing on third with Dale, the number three batter, up. I almost gave Dale the bunt sign there because he has been in a funk all year. He isn’t seeing the ball well right now and to make matters worse, how in the world was he going to see a baseball that, at this time, wasn’t white anymore and was coming in about 80 MPH?
Well, Dale hit the cannon ball alright, and laced an opposite-field single to tie the game. At this time, all I was thinking about was the Cee Lo Green song…and the word Rochambeau after it (lol). The bench was going crazy, the fans were going crazy and the California Redwoods were starting to accept the fact that they might just lose.
Dale stole second with Dan at the plate. Dale, thinking it was a passed ball, tried stealing third and got thrown out. The thunder our fans exhibited was directed at the umpire for calling Dale out, but I simply told Dale that I don’t mind that he was aggressive because I told the team at the beginning of the season that I would never get on them for being aggressive. We can’t change the cards we are dealt, but we can change the way we play the hand, and we still had Dan up with two outs.
Dan walked, stole second base, and Mike followed Dan with a walk as well. Suddenly, their cannon was going haywire. On the pitch Mike walked on, Dan was actually stealing third and they threw down to get him. They were unsuccessful and I yelled for Mike to get into a run-down. Somehow, time-out was called when the third baseman had the ball (Dan never called it) and Mike had to retreat back to first. Nevertheless, Mike stole second on the first pitch, and we had the winning run on third and a decoy at second. We were a very-realistic passed ball away from winning the game and improving to 5-0. Timmy ended up striking out on a border-line pitch but we tied the game! We were taking Megatron to overtime!
They ended up getting an earned run and unearned run in the top of the eighth. When we came up to bat in the bottom half of the eighth, we were chasing two, but we were determined to put everything we had into getting this “W”. We might not have had a cannon like them, but we had a bunch of soldiers who went against the cannon with only a sword – their bat.
Alex was to lead off the inning and he grounded out to second. I was wowed by Alex’s at bat because he hasn’t gotten a lot of playing time this year and was still able to put the ball in play. I think the team saw that too and were fired up by it. Preston followed Alex by walking and stealing two bases. It was up to Owen to extend the game.
Owen simply amazes me. I’m convinced that if you told him to fly to the moon, he’d find a way to get it done. Owen tried to lay down another bunt but it went foul. The next pitch was called a strike. O was down 0-2 and we were losing our breath running up the hill trying to destroy the cannon.
The next two pitches were balls. O followed those pitches by fouling the next pitch off. The following pitch was a ball and O had worked the count full! The next pitch, O hit a single down the first base line! We were within one with the tying run – a speedster nonetheless in Owen – on first! O did it again! Calling him awesome would be an insult in my eyes. He’s way beyond awesome.
O ended up stealing second and the tying run was in scoring position with Adam, arguably the best hitter on the team, up at the dish! The whole army of Spartans was joining together going wild! Adam was down 0-2 before working the count to 2-2. Who was going to win out? The cannon or the solider?
Next pitch was a called third strike and Adam was visibly upset. Look, you should protect with two strikes and Adam knows that, but Adam has the Eye of the Tiger at the plate and I knew by his reaction that the pitch was most likely a ball. Whatever, our pocket kings lost out to pocket aces. How could I be upset about any of this? We went into battle with the odds stacked “high” against us and came within a stolen base of third from winning the game.
Even just writing this I’m still beyond excited. I’m just so proud of the team for the way they refused to lose. Maybe an “L” goes in the loss column, but honestly this was a victory. We play them again next Monday and believe me, we’ll want that game more than Steinbrenner wants another championship, but first we have three games this week that we need to take care of.
I’m at a loss for words to describe how Alex came in and totally changed the complexion of the game. It felt like Randy Johnson wouldn’t have been able to tame their bats. Like all of his teammates, Alex embraced the battle he was captain of and didn’t lead his troops into fire. As the team proved today, every superhero, villain, wonder of the world or ginormous creature has its kryptonite.
What I love about my team is that they know they are good but still want to be coached. I wouldn’t trade this trade for any team in the world. It would be too easy being the Rochambeau coach – and nothing against him at all – but he doesn’t have to teach anything. All he has to do is be there as a supervisor because his team is too talented and intimidates too many teams for him to have to “coach”.
As I said in Monday night’s email about the fan support we have received all season so far: Just want to thank everyone for coming out today and cheering us on. I can’t say enough about how great the fan support has been this year and how much the fans mean to us as a team. It’s so awesome to see a sea of yellow extend all the way to the sidelines. We truly have a “10th man” out on the field. Please keep it up!
The Spartans continue on today against Jockey Hollow. We need to take care of business!
-Matt-
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It’s been a few days since I’ve updated he here blog so you can probably guess what that means: the weather. Come on now, I’ve been good lately! I’ve given up my battle with the weather and learned to just laugh it off. As the previous sentence indicates, Wednesday’s showdown at Newtown will have to wait. Unfortunately, the game will not be rescheduled, but the good news is that we do have one game against them at home on Wednesday, May 25th.
It wasn’t all weather related, however, that baseball activities were cancelled. As I stated in my previous blog, Thursday’s practice was cancelled because I had to attend Honor’s Night at ND. That brings us to Friday…
A sunny and warm Friday is always a good sign on so many levels, never mind the fact that it’s Friday! Friday afternoon, we were to play Memorial, and the last time we played Memorial, well you all know what happened. I was a little worried – but not to the point where I lost sleep over it – about the team having two days off before a game. Actually, I thought it might be a good thing because I wanted to see how the team responded to a team they knew they should beat without me reminding them they had to bring their “A” game the day before.
When I arrived at the field on Friday, I remembered this conversation I had with myself and kept a laid-back demeanor all throughout pre-game activities. We did customary infield/outfield and if the fielder missed the ball, I didn’t get on him like I did to the team in the pre-game activities before the game against Bethel. From what I have seen from this team, they may have a “bad” practice, but that’s never carried over into a game. Because of that, there was no need to go all Chris Brown, GMA style on them, especially because they were playing a team who I believed, if we made a mistake here or there, we’d be strong enough to overcome it and win.
However, with that said, while Memorial was warming-up, I reminded the team to come out – to use the ever so cliché phrase that has appeared so many times on this blog – with their foot on the gas pedal. I told them not to take Memorial for granted and to take care of business from the get go. In my mind, I knew the team was going to, and I had my plan for the game all set out. Adam was going to start the game on the mound and pitch two innings. Chris was going to follow Adam in the third and fourth innings, and Alex was going to pitch the fifth.
While I should have learned from last game, no scenario that I go over in my head ever happens in a game. For the first time ever, I went against what I always tell the team to do – stay humble. I’m not afraid to admit it because it was a learning experience for me, but it will NEVER happen again. I don’t care if we’re playing Sister of the Poor. I will never take a win for granted again.
I wanted to stay away from Matty M. and Preston at all costs in this game because they have pitched a lot so far and we have four consecutive games starting on Monday. I wanted to start Adam because he’s the only pitcher that hasn’t pitched in a game so far this year. With that, Adam threw well in warm-ups and I knew my decision to start him was more than warranted.
Adam started the game off by walking the first batter on five pitches. I expected it might take him a batter or two to find the strike zone so I wasn’t at all worried. In fact, that was the only batter he walked the rest of the inning. Adam got the second batter to ground into a tailor-made double-play, but the ball was thrown into center field and Memorial had first and second with zero outs. The third batter unleashed a two-run double and we were down for the first time all year.
I was still rather calm after this and knew we hadn’t even come up to bat yet. It wasn’t until the fourth batter hit a ground ball that was booted and made it first and third with zero outs that I lost it. I called time-out and on my way out to the mound I demanded, “Everyone to the pitcher’s mound NOW”. When they all gathered around the mound, I ripped into them. I told them that they were doing exactly what I told them not to do (ironic because I was doing the same and I didn’t realize it until I reflected on the game) and that was taking Memorial for granted. I told them that they’re not even making the routine plays right now and I slammed the dirt on the pitcher’s mound with my hand. The team looked scared but judging by the reaction on their faces, I had no doubt they knew I meant business and understood what needed to be done.
Now that the outcome of the game has been settled, looking back on it, what happens next is rather funny. The next batter of the game hit a fly ball to Jeff and he dropped it. It’s funny because Jeff is a player who makes me laugh in a good way. He was the one who, after I yelled for him to steal in a scrimmage, didn’t steal! It was just funny because after I just lambasted the team about making an error, Jeff made one! This is not meant to single Jeff out in any way as it is meant to show everyone that while my blood may boil, I do know how to let things go and just laugh them off – just like I did with the weather!
When the top half of the first ended, we were down 4-0. I said what I needed to say to the team when I went out to the pitcher’s mound and I didn’t need to say anything else to them. I wasn’t going to carry on about what just happened because it would be going against what I tell the team to do – suck it up and move on. Coach Mark talked to them but I just stood in the background and let him have his moment with them. After all, here was a team that was averaging 16 runs a game coming up to bat.
As Memorial’s pitcher was warming up, Coach Greg, who I knew was going to be at the game late, sent me a text and asked me how Adam reacted to the news that he was going to start. I replied to his text that we were down 4-0. To make matters worse, for the first time all season, Adam didn’t lead off the game by getting on base. He hit a pop-fly behind home plate that was caught by the catcher. I’m not going to lie, I started to get nervous.
Anyhow, Matty M. reached on an error, Dale walked, Dan walked, and Mike walked to drive in a run. Timmy grounded into a fielder’s coach (Mike out at second) to make the score 4-2. With that, I received a text message from Coach Greg: 4-2, it read. Jeff hit a single to right field and drove in Dale to make it 4-3. With that, I received another text from Coach Greg that read: 4-3. All I could do at this point was laugh my @$$ off. Like I previously said, after I said my bit to the team on the pitcher’s mound, I never reminded them of that at any time the rest of the game. I was able to laugh it off and Coach Greg’s texts were helping me laugh off whatever I wasn’t able to laugh off before!
Since we didn’t take the lead and I knew we needed to shut them down, I brought Preston into the game in the top of the second. Adam was disappointed when he found out he wasn’t going back on the mound, but I assured him that he did a really good job and did what I asked, threw strikes, but I needed to shut them down so we could get the lead. I didn’t want to bring Preston into this game, but I had no choice. Preston had shut down Memorial previously, not to mention Bethel, and I knew he’d be the one to go to squash whatever momentum Memorial had.
True to form, Memorial went scoreless in the top on the second. We ended up scoring three runs in the bottom of the second to take a 6-4 lead, but not enough of a cushion to take Preston out. An RBI walk by Mike and a two-run single by Timmy accounted for the second inning runs.
In the top of the third, Memorial got a run after a single to third (in which Adam did his best impression of his sister who does gymnastics by doing a somersault trying to cut the ball off), stolen base, passed ball and a ground out. That was the only run they scored the remainder of the game. However, if we didn’t score enough in the bottom of the third, my entire game plan I thought of earlier would be thrown out. Up to this point, it had been altered, but not enough to throw it out the window completely. We ended up getting three more runs in the bottom of the third, but not enough of a cushion I was comfortable with to take my stopper out of the game. To show how deep our lineup is, Dylan’s single from the nine spot drove in two runs and Dylan himself came around to score on a passed ball making the score 9-5.
Preston was back on the mound for the top of the fourth and shut Memorial down. After the top half of the fourth, I told Preston he did a superb job, but he was done because I needed him for Monday. I made him ice his arm and he took a lap around the field. I had Matty M. and Chris warm-up with the scenario that if we blew the game open, Chris would be on the mound, but if it was still close, Matty M., my other stopper, would be on the mound. Nothing against putting Chris into a tight situation, but I haven’t seen enough of him on the mound to know how he’ll react in a close situation. Part of it was because up until this point, we hadn’t had a close game.
We ended up putting up a goose egg in the bottom half of the fourth and my decision was made: Matty was going on the hill…until he told me his arm was bothering him. By now, my entire plan was thrown out the window and while I hate doing this, I turned to Preston and asked if he could give me one more and he obliged. True to form, he shut Memorial down in the top of the fifth. At this point, I didn’t care if we didn’t score in the bottom half; Preston was done, even though he advised me he could continue, and Chris was going in.
It was 9-5 going into the bottom of the fifth and in no way did the term “mercy-rule” cross my mind. Sure enough, when it got to be 13-5 and we had the bases loaded, it crossed my mind that mercy-rule may be so. I yelled to Coach Greg to coach third while I went and started making changes to the lineup to get the subs into the game. I was able to pinch hit for Jeff in favor of Chris and Chris hit a groundball to third base that was overthrown to first base and two runs scored. I knew that was the game, but I was hoping the umpire didn’t just the subs could get an at bat. However, he knew the score and the game was over. Final score favored the good guys 15-5.
At the end of the day, I was proud of the fact that the team overcame adversity, as small at it was, and won. I think the team understood that no matter how bad you beat an opponent in a previous game, that doesn’t matter for an upcoming game. See Jet/Patriots playoff game. That’s going to be ever-so important going forward as we begin to see a repeat of teams in our schedule.
Monday begins a string of four games in four days. Of course, when a rainout wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, the forecast looks wonderful. Oh well, I’m not complaining. It will be a good challenge ahead!
Rochambeau is a really good team so we need your support on Monday,
-Matt-
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And so it continues, this so-called journey to be the best we can possibly be. That sounds like some Army catchphrase or something. Speaking of which, and not to get too political here, but I don’t condone killing, but in the case of Osama bin Laden, if given the opportunity, I would have pulled the trigger myself. I lost over one million of my fellow Americans on 9/11/01 (counting survivors who had their lives altered forever) – innocent Americans on that horrible day – and that irks the hell out of me. I view bin Laden as nothing more than a monster and when we are children and we think we see a monster, we run to mommy and daddy and tell them to “make the monster go away”. I take great pleasure in knowing that the last thing that monster saw on this planet was a bullet heading straight for his head.
Anyhow back to baseball. Like I ended my last blog with, Newtown doesn’t need any billing. In fact, on Monday when I mentioned the words “Newtown” and “good” in the same sentence, the team loves to remind me of the Memorial game and how I talked up how good Memorial was. Since then, every time I tell them that the team we are going to play is really, really good, they just nod their heads and say, “Just like Memorial, right?”
In the pre-practice huddle on Monday, I also told the team that – and this hasn’t been brought to my attention – but I probably haven’t praised them as much as they deserve so far. I let them know that I appreciate everything they’ve done so far and they’re doing a tremendous job. However, one of the best lines of advice I’ve ever heard (and was reinforced in the book The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch) is that the more someone compliments you, the more they are giving up on you. Compliments mean you believe a person has reached their optimum level. Granted, I will say a compliment is needed and is not always a bad thing, but when you keep riding the team and reminding them that they can do better, it shows them that they need to keep working to get to that optimum level, not so much as bestowing it upon them.
Another thing I have noticed in the three games we have played so far is that the outfielders have done nothing more then soaked up the sun and gotten some color. In other words, I think there was maybe one ball hit to the outfielders in the three games we have played this season. I’m not complaining about this, but I actually wondered, far-fetched I imagine, if the outfielders knew what to do if the ball was hit at/past/in front of them last game.
I would say for 45 minutes on Monday, I hit balls at/past/in front of the outfielders just to make sure they knew what it felt like for a ball to be hit to them. Personally, if a ball isn’t hit to the outfielders the rest of the year, I’d love it. It’s not because I don’t have confidence in the outfielders, believe me I do, but it would mean the opposing teams aren’t hitting our pitchers. It wasn’t until Tuesday’s practice where Dale had mentioned to me that it’s a good thing that we did this because upon further reflection, Dale, like me, finally took the blinders off and realized that nothing has been hit to the outfielders. We all know that’s going to change against Newtown.
After working with the outfielders, we did the team’s favorite drill of all time: situations. For whatever reason, they just love this drill. Me: “Guys, we’re only going to do this for 20 minutes and then hit.” Team: “Coach, we don’t need to hit.” After twenty minutes and we finish the last inning: Team: “Coach, can we go one more inning?” After we complete that last inning: Me: “You guys want to go one more inning?” Team: “YES coach!” After that last inning: Me: “OK guys, time to hit.” Team: “Coach, can we please just hit tomorrow? We’ve been hitting all year!” I guess the team is really buying into my motto of “pitching and defense”. I always thought baseball players preferred to hit, but I guess I’m wrong. Of course I caved in and let them keep going because how can you say no to defense? After all, it takes only one run to win a game.
At the end of practice, I picked Mike, Gunnar, Adam and Chris as the leaders for the next drill: a race around the bases and they could pick their teams. Two teams of four players each would go head-to-head around the bases once, one team starting at second, the other at home. Whoever won the first race would face the winning team of the second race. The two losing teams would also face off. I don’t remember who won, but I remembered who lost. We didn’t have enough players to have even teams unless I joined the fray and sure enough, the team that I was on lost. The punishment for losing was to run the farthest after the competition. I know what you’re thinking – Coach didn’t do this part! You betcha I did! I was part of the team that lost and I had to suffer the consequences with the rest of my team.
On Tuesday, I received an email from someone that angered me a great deal. There was something in that email that a Newtown coach said that angered me. He said that his team was really good and that our team was unlikely to beat them. As a Patriot fan, I know what this is: bulletin board material. I made sure I shared this bit of information with the team before practice. I hope it angered them more than it did me. Basically, the Newtown coach was saying he didn’t care how good we are because we’re not better than his team. I also texted that to the team on Tuesday night just to remind them that their skill was being questioned.
We also talked about entering a Tournament in the pre-practice huddle. I sent out an email to all parents last night explaining that situation. Which reminds me: THERE IS NO PRACTICE THIS THURSDAY, MAY 5TH. I have Honors Night here at ND that I need to be at. I wish I could get a haircut beforehand, but I can’t! Nine more wins!
Tuesday’s practice started off with the running drill again only this time I had the slowest team members (Alex, Cole, Matty G and Timmy) pick their teams. Also, all four teams were going to race at the same time, one team starting at first, one at second, one at third, one at home. I also forgot who won.
After that, we worked some more on getting the outfielders to move followed by more situations. I wasn’t even going to do situations in Tuesday’s practice because I wanted the team to have BP, especially because Tommy’s dad agreed to throw. However, I heard a lot of mumbling about doing situations so I asked the captains what they wanted to do and sure enough they picked situations!
Finally, at around 4:30, it was time to start hitting. I broke the team up into eight-on-eight, starters from last game versus subs. I told Tommy’s dad not to be afraid to throw hard and mix his pitches since that’s what the team is going to see against Newtown. I was only able to stay for the first two innings of this “game” since I had to be at my Little League game at 5:30, but the team hit Tommy’s dad pretty well. Not a lot of hits, but outside of maybe one strike-out, the rest of the balls were put in play, a good sign considering the kids view Tommy’s dad like MLB players view Nolan Ryan.
The forecast is looking pretty gray (pun-intended) for Wednesday but let’s hope the rain holds off. I would love for us to beat Newtown so much for the fact that “we’re not supposed to beat them”. Osama bin Laden vowed never to be found by the Americans. We all know what happened to him 8-).
Hope to see you all at Newtown, cheering as loud as possible,
-Matt-
P.S. Special thanks to Tommy’s dad for throwing to the team!
