Recalling Undergrad Classes

I know the subtitle of the blog says something about a journey through a baseball season, but that was a couple seasons ago and so I am deciding, for the moment anyway, to add some thoughts outside of baseball....because I can.

This morning I was a little light-headed for the first couple hours at school, but as the day continued I felt as though I had more energy than I did yesterday.  I had a hitting/pitching lesson with a ten year old, had a nice workout at the Y, and then did some grocery shopping, came home and made some dinner for Eric and myself.

At the grocery store I ran into and said hello to Spencer Bennett, a retired History/Social Science professor from Siena Heights University.  As a social Science major during my undergrad years, I had the opportunity to have a handful of classes with Spencer.  I'm pretty sure the first one was a class titles 'Popular Culture in the US'.  I remember having an assignment requiring us to go to downtown Detroit and watch a movie that had just come out that was called 'The Buddy Holly Story.'  Since then the movie has been on television countless times and I always watch at least a little bit of it if I've got nothing else going on.  I still love to hear many of the Buddy Holly (and the Crickets) that were featured in that soundtrack.

I remember another time, during my senior year of college, when I missed a test in Spencer's American History class on a Friday morning.  I was prepared and I knew the information and would have probably scored well on the test.  My roommate, JD, was also taking that class, and we always studied for the tests together on the morning of the tests.  JD took the test and earned a 'B' I think.  He was a business major and was taking the course as an elective.  I went to Spencer's office to explain that I was sorry for missing the test and that I would take the test if he would give me the opportunity.  He told me to forget about it, that he knew I would have done fine, and allowed me to slide by without penalty for missing it.  Needless to say, JD wasn't please with either me or Professor Bennett!!  I have seen Spencer a number of times at the YMCA over the past few years.  I am thankful for so many people like him!  He was an extremely intelligent man who enjoyed his job and had a great sense of humor!

Anyway, I do feel much better tonight, though I'll probably get to sleep earlier than normal.  On to what I hope will be a speedy recovery from the scary flare-up of last week.

My kids are both awesome!!

On to the next task

Yesterday we won the championship in the first MIAA Baseball Tournament, earning a automatic berth into the NCAA DIII Regionals next week.  In past seasons we earned the privilege to compete in the regionals by winning our regular season championship.  Though we did win the regular season title again, we had to prove it all over again on the field this week by winning the four-team, double elimination conference tournament.  We completed the job without a loss, thanks to some fantastic execution by our hitters, defensive players, and pitchers.

Congratulations to our eight seniors, who were MIAA Champions all four years here at Adrian College!!  They are the first group to do so since some Alma College players did it back in the 1950s!!

Our players know that the season does not end here; we've still got some work to do!  We advanced to the DIII College World Series in 2008, but that was a year before these seniors put on their AC uniforms.  We now must go win a Regional Tournament, most likely in Marietta, Ohio, to advance to the CWS again.

Obviously, the regional tournament will have other championship teams trying to achieve the same goal that our team has.  One of those teams is Marietta College, the defending national champions who just won their conference tournament today.  In 2011 we played them in a doubleheader in Florida and split the two games with them, losing 3-1 and winning 2-0.

What do we have to do to continue our success in the post-season?  The answer is that we need to keep executing in the batters box, on the mound, and with our gloves.  Our plan as a pitching staff has been the same all season: throw first pitch strikes, get leadoff batters out, throw to the bottom of the strike zone, and successfully manage damage control.  The pitchers know that this team's offense is going to put some runs on the scoreboard, and that always takes some pressure off of the defense and pitching.

Our team is among the DIII national leaders in some statistical categories as we prepare for the regionals.  Among those categories are slugging percentage, batting average, runs per game, triples, earned run average, walks allowed per game, and strikeout to walk ratio.  With some of those categories, the keys to success have so much to do with taking care of the little things and focusing on the task at hand.  Once we take care of the task at hand, we can focus on the next one.  One pitch at a time, on batter at a time, one inning at a time, and one game at a time.

We call that Business as Usual.

Before I finish this, I want to give a proud shout out to my Alma Mater and former team, the Saints of Siena Heights University, who won the WHAC Tournament and advanced to the semi-finals in the opening round of the NAIA National Tournament.  Congrats to Coach John Kolasinski, his staff and all the players.  In addition, continued good luck to our former AC coaches Luke Harrigan and Xander Younce, who are currently in their third game of the WVIAC Tournament.

A little perspective

Now that our regular season has ended, our preparation for the NCAA DIII Regional Tournament continues.  We lost our last two regular season games to Hope College on Tuesday by scores of 3-0 and 4-2.  Nobody likes to lose games, and certainly not two games in one day, but we have to tip our caps to Hope’s players; they out-played us.  That happens in baseball, so we continue to try and become a better team each day, just as we have all season.

The all conference team was announced yesterday and we have six players who earned all-conference, first team honors in the MIAA this year.  We had the pitcher of the year and the player of the year for the third year in a row.  Congratulations to all of the guys and to our one second team all league players.  All of them are well-deserved awards, but I know that each guy would trade personal rewards for team accomplishments!!

Today I attended a funeral in Dearborn for the father of one of my former players at Siena Heights University.  Eric attended with me, as he had gotten to know my players pretty well while he was in his last couple years of high school.  There was a work accident that led to the death of the young 57 year old man.  I never know what the best thing to say is at a time like that, so I told Ryan that I was sorry and that loved him, gave him and his wife, mom and brother big hugs.  The priest at Divine Child did a great job during the funeral.  He said that Frank lived his life, just as God intended for us to do.  He was a friend to many and a great father and husband.

An incident like that can often put things into perspective.  Some people may stress over the loss of a doubleheader, but Ryan and his loved ones have huge holes in their hearts and it is difficult, I’m sure, to fill those holes right now.  Compared to losing baseball games, well, there is no way to compare the two.

The fortunate thing for Ryan and his family is that they have lived their lives knowing that God loves them, and that Frank lived his life as a great example of what God’s love is all about.  He didn’t necessarily verbalize his faith; he lived it.  Ryan’s family will gain in strength because of Frank’s love for them and his faith in the Lord.  Frank shared his faith with all family and friends that he encountered, and he did it completely.

So as far as the Regional Tournament is concerned, if we are to compete, then we must compete completely.  God put us on this earth with other people for a reason.  He didn’t put us here by ourselves.  He gave each of us unique gifts, gifts that are to be shared with others.  Our players can hopefully compete with each other and for each other, sacrificing ego for the good of their teammates, playing for their teammates rather than themselves.

My players don’t know Ryan or Frank, but I want to thank Frank for sharing Ryan with me for a few years, and thank Ryan for giving everything he had for his teammates for four years.  Victories on the field may not be able to be taken away, but the selflessness of teammates carries over for generations, always to be warmly felt and remembered.

Faith in selves, teammates, and salvation

Today we have had some wind and some rain, thus our doubleheader against Hope College has been postponed until Tuesday, May 10th at Adrian College.  We are still traveling to Hope tomorrow to play two games of the four game series.  As always, when you love getting out there and competing on the baseball field, it is a bit of a disappointment to have games postponed.  And when a team has been playing as well as we have, the players and coaches just want to get back out there to get at it again.  But of course, some things are out of our control, so we had a practice and can get prepared to play two games tomorrow.

Fortunately this week we were able to play two non-conference games at home against Siena Heights University, a school and baseball program that I love.  We started two freshmen on the mound, with local right hander Rylie Robinson throwing a complete game shutout in a 2-0 first game victory.  Rylie has improved throughout the season, especially with his efficiency, as he threw first pitch strikes to 21 of the 28 batters he faced (75%).  Getting first pitch strikes and getting leadoff batters out are two of the main things we have talked about throughout the season, and in doing those two things well a pitcher can make things easier for himself and his defensive teammates.

In game two, Brent Greenwood had a rocky first inning with some bad luck, and gave up four runs, two of which were unearned.  But to Brent's credit, he pitched the next five innings without allowing a walk and giving up only one more hit. It says a lot about a pitcher when he can bounce back from sucha rough first inning and pitch like a champion for the rest of the game!!

Brent was relieved in the 7th inning by Lucas Willitzer, a converted catcher who earned his first college pitching victory by throwing a scoreless inning.  We scored two runs in the bottom of the 7th to get a walk-off win as Jake Cappellety drove Brian Bilius home with a two out single up the middle.

Bilius made a major league play at third base during the game, and for him that is just 'business as usual'.  He has been making great plays all season, saving runs for us and helping to keep pitch counts to a minimum.  With the combination of Brian's leadership, defense, and hitting, I think it would be a shame of he does not get named as the MIAA player of the year when the coaches get together to vote.

I have enjoyed reading quotes from our pitchers in the local paper this season.  On just about every occasion they mention that the defense had been great behind them.  Having faith in teammates and remember that it is always 9 against 1 when we are on the mound helps to make pitching a lot easier than it might otherwise be!!

Hopefully this dreadful spring weather (though I am grateful to be out on the field!!) will change and we can play in nice conditions tomorrow and for the rest of the season.  Our guys have final exams next week and then they can really focus on daily baseball improvements and achieving our team goals.  We can't take anything for granted, and we must continue to compete and be grateful for the opportunity to have fun on the baseball field.!!

Since today is Good Friday, I would like to end this post with a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas:  "To one who has Faith no explanation is necessary. To one without Faith no explanation is possible."