You don't know what you don't know

I began working as a college baseball coach in the summer of 1987, 24 years ago.  At that time, at the age of 28, I certainly didn't know what I didn't know.  I still don't know what I don't know.  That is a quote that my good friend Mark Merriman once told me, and I have repeated it hundreds of times since then.

One thing I have learned in the sport of baseball is the importance of pitching.  In particular, each game is in one way or another determined by the two guys who oppose each other on the mound at the beginning of the game.  Another thing I learned is that the results of a pitcher on any certain day are unpredictable, and I believe it is the most unpredictable thing in the sport of baseball.  We can look at Major League Baseball games to figure that out.  Hall of Fame bound pitchers sometimes get rocked and pulled from a game in the early innings.  Occasionally an unknown guy will throw a no hitter or flirt with a perfect game and never come close to doing so again.

Our Adrian College team has started the MIAA season by winning seven of our first eight league games.  We have to be careful not to feel too high about it, and by the same token we have to be cautious about having any negative thoughts about our only loss so far.

We had won our first six league games and had our #1 and #2 pitchers going in the next doubleheader against Trine University last Saturday at Trine's field.  For good reason, we felt pretty confident about our chances of sweeping that doubleheader, leaving the field with an 8-0 conference record and with Coach Craig Rainey's 400th and 401st career victories.

Our two pitchers, Ryan Domschot and Dave Parytyka, were coming back on only three day's rest, perhaps for the only time this season.  They both felt pretty good and had worked exceptionally hard during those three days to assure that they would be as close to 100% as possible.  But again, as unpredictable as pitching is, we discovered that there are no guarantees.

Dommer gave up a single to the first batter in inning #1, then after a couple fluky kind of plays they had scored a run.  The next couple innings some similar things happened and soon we were down 7-4, but still in the game.  Craig Steadman, who has been tremendous out of the bullpen all season, came in and was also the victim of some unfortunate things and we ended up behind by eight runs.

The freaky types of things that happened were things like wind blown pop flys dropping in, ground balls and bunts that we didn't get outs on, and umpire's questionable calls that ultimately ended up in two of our coaches getting thrown out of the game.

One good result of that game was that I saw our pitchers return to the dugout and become the models of leadership for their teammates, not sulking but rather being supportive of their teammates for the rest of the day.  That is important for any athlete in any sport!

We ended up winning game two even though we gave up runs in similar style as game one, in addition to allowing the first home run hit against us since opening day in February.  We also hit our first three home runs of the season and got back to our winning ways.

The last two days we have played three jv games, with some pretty good pitching being displayed in those.  We threw seven shutout innings out of nine on Monday, and then yesterday we had guys go deep into games and pitch effectively throughout.  This is an indication that our entire pitching staff continues to make progress, and the younger position players are learning how to compete and win close games.  Those are invaluable experiences for any athlete.

Although I was not expected to be in uniform for our jv games, I have donned the uniform (sometimes with the wrong team pants) because I enjoy the opportunity to be there during competition, to communicate with the pitchers and position players and help them to make strides of progress every day.  But don't get me wrong, I can't admit that I am just there for them; I'm there because I love being in the dugout, competing with the players.  They give back to me more than what I give them, for sure!!

Our goal was to win every league game, one at a time.  It is a lofty goal, but goals are meant to be challenging.  We have now lost one of eight, which is pretty darn good.  Now our goal is to win the next game, and then the one after that, etc.  If we continue to get better and climb out of the temporary valleys that come in the form of losses, we will again represent the MIAA in the Regionals and put ourselves in a position to get back to the DIII College Baseball World Series.