Conn-quer The Nation

Day 26: A Collapse for the Ages can Mean the Future Ahead is Bright

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.

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-

1 Comment so far
Leave a comment