Rollercoaster ride to the playoffs

Starting off hot in the beginning of the season definitely paid off for the Navigator's. We slowly started to just expect success instead of working towards it. Right now our team knows we have made it to the playoffs, but we have had an identity crisis the past 10 games. Sometimes a roster gets flipped around a bit later in a season because certain players aren't as consistent as others, yet it is tough as a position player to be moved around in the order. The only thing you can do is play the game the same wherever you are placed. The next few games we will be fighting to find a line up that has the greatest probability for success. Every game is different, since there are almost too many variables to count, but the one thing that never changes is a players "drive" or "want to" attitude. No one can motivate you better than yourself, and the only one way a player can prove he is worth anything is by his actions. Hustling for every ball and giving your all towards every play is the only thing any coach can ask for. Our team has many personalities and we have indeed hit some bumps in the road, but you can guarantee we have enough players on our team that have that drive, that have that urge to go to the next level, prove that they belong in the starting line up. There are a lot of players that have given up, and are only thinking about their ride home when the season is over. I am speaking for every player in this league when I say that I am mentally and physically worn out, but that's what all sports are about. Pushing the limit and finding out what you can accomplish when the odds are against you, running till you are out of steam and giving it all you got. We are in a good enough position to give this a go if our team comes together a little bit more the next couple of days. We are working hard to look past some negative attitudes we have encountered, once we establish a set line up it will be a little easier to learn our roles and stick to them. One thing still never changes, wherever we are placed you still have to catch, throw, run, and hit. We have proved we are all good at doing those things so nothing should hold us back from putting up a fight.

Being an All-Star

Making the All-Star team in this league is something I will never forget. This being my last summer to prove anything baseball wise, I feel like I am going out with a pretty good bang. I am proud to be a part of this league/All-Star team since I have witnessed the talent first hand. 5 of my well deserving teammates on the Navigator's have been selected as well, and that alone will make the experience that much better. Our team has a great staff and has made playing here a wonderful experience. There is absolutely nothing else I would rather do than play baseball all summer, playing for the NECBL and the Northshore Navigator's have made me feel like one hell of a player. I can't say much else without repeating myself, this summer has been great so far and if my journey with baseball ended here I would be proud with all I have accomplished. You must play every game like it is your last, in every sport you never know when a serious injury may take the sport you love out of the picture. I have seen and heard of many friends getting injuries that keep them from doing things they love, thats why I will always play my ass off, not just for myself but for the respect of the game and my friends and family.

Umpires

Due to a particularly tough game last night I decided to focus on a part of the game that has the most power in this sport. Whether it is soccer, volleyball, basketball, or baseball umpires and referees are in control of the game. Their judgement and decisions throughout the match or game can be interpretted many ways, and it is always tough if you think your team is getting screwed out of some easy calls. In basketball a referee can let the players play physical or he can have a tight leesh by calling minor contact fouls early to send a message, the same goes for soccer and other sports that involve constant contact. In baseball a new call is necessary almost every 10-15 seconds. The job of calling balls and strikes is not an easy one by any means, yet it isn't too hard to be consistant. Now what I am doing right now isn't crying about a loss or saying that an umpire blew our game, I am basically telling you how an umpire can get in the head of both players and coaches. If you are out in the field and you see your pitcher working his butt off to throw strikes without giving up a run for you and your team then you want him to get what he deserves. A low ball is thrown that looks like it could be a strike, yet the umpire in turn calls it a ball. My emotion is simply "Shucks, that looked pretty good, get him next pitch man." You get out of the inning and you go up to bat and the pitcher throws a ball to you that looks a little low, so knowing the previous information you take the pitch since you know your own strengths and weeknesses in the box. This time however the umpire calls it a strike. The immediate thought in your head is usually never good, however as a batter it is never good to let one call dictate your whole at bat, thats why you get three strikes not one. I have had umpires tell me they have missed calls before or they "probably" missed that one. They have asked me if I indeed tagged a runner out or if I just sold them well. I have tagged out runners with no doubt and the umpire swore he thought i didn't, and I have been no where close to a tag and he called them out. In that ramble I wanted you to see that sometimes it really is a coin flip, they do have a tough job, but they have to make a call either way, if they saw it well or not. They can't say "I honestly didn't see what happend, what did you see?" What a lot of teams ask for if they think they are bad calls is for the umpire to simply call it the same on both sides. When you get to college this becomes more important because the talent level goes up. If a strike zone is too big then pitchers are going to take advantage of it and make a lot of batters look silly by forcing them to swing at pitches they normally wouldn't, or at anything that is close to the plate. If the strike zone is too small then it is going to force the pitchers to throw the ball right down the middle, which usually results in a lot more hard hit balls. A small strike zone is sometimes called "getting squeezed" and that is indeed what we all believe happend last night, yet it isn't even worth getting mad. Theres always tomorrow, and if you have games every day then you can't worry about umpires, you'll have a short career if you focus too much on them instead of your game.

Got to keep our chins up

There have been more ups than downs for the Navigators this season. Yet this being the half way point in the season we all know we need to keep our bats hot. It is tough sometimes when you have accomplished so much, yet you are still expected to produce. That's why playing all sports is tough, you can't worry about what you have done in the past since you are only as good as your next pitch/swing. If a player strikes out during a game sometimes the thought of getting a hit creeps in a little too much. If they don't hit the ball well the next time up then they are even more frustrated because the urge for a hit just increased. A good baseball player of course has a short memory, yet all that should be said in the case of failure is "that is baseball". I have talked about success and failure a lot on this blog, and it is really tough not to bring one of the two into every sentence, but it is how everyone reacts to it that makes the difference on each team. We all know that we are a good team, and we have the potential to do great things in this league. If we keep our heads held high and we play the way we know we can then we will.

TEAM

Whether someone has an old injury that they are still recovering from or it's a recent one, our team is working through it. Most are jammed fingers and sore arms which are normal injuries for any baseball team. We have enough people on our roster to give people breaks when needed, and our pitching staff has been strong enough to help our bats when they weren't the strongest. We have indeed become a team, which is great to see. This being my first experience on a team of this caliber I wasn't sure what to expect. Would the teammates seem emotionless when someone other than themselves did well and only focus on their individual performance? Would they do the little things that real baseball fans notice? Would we all play with the same passion? Hell yes! It is pretty hard to get unlucky enough to get a couple hot heads on your team that think they are better than everyone else. Confidence is good, but only with a correct dose. Thats why our team hasn't had many problems. We all know what everyone is capable of, and we all know what it takes to be successfull. I am proud to be a part of this team, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this season. It has been a blast so far.

A break in the weather

The Navigator's and Baysox surely appreciated a little break from all the rain we have been getting recently. You couldn't tell that anyone was acting any different, but all the players were happy to see the sun. The conditions were perfect for us to set our feet beneath us once again. Our lead off hitter had a great night at the plate, which proved to help tremendously tonight. Not only did we hit the ball well, we used almost every part of the game tonight. We stole bases, sacrificed runners into scoring position, and had a solid pitching performance.

A great moment in tonight's game: Our lead off hitter (Tre Dennis) hit a single and proceeded to steal 2nd base. At this point all we needed was a sacrifice bunt to move him from 2nd base to third and then a semi deep fly ball to score him. Our second hitter in the line up couldn't get the bunt down and then popped up (1 out). Tre, taking advantage of lazy defense up the middle got a solid lead/jump and stole third, therefor "picking up" our second batter, and making it a little easier on our third hitter. Since the game was close pretty much the whole game the Baysox brought the infield in. Our 3rd batter proceeded to strike out, however with two outs our number 4 hitter kept his composure and smacked a double, keeping the inning alive. Now that's good baseball.

"Picking each other up" on the field and in the dugout is how teams bond, and gain trust in one another. If one person doesn't get a hit one at bat, then the next teammate will. If an infielder makes an error on a ball that's hit off their pitcher, they know they are going to make the next play. That's the mentality that teams need to have in order to have success. Like I have said before, it is tough to play a game that has so much failure involved, but that is why you have teammates.

Not enough hits in a row

It's tough sometimes to look at the box score and see a team winning even though they only had 1 more hit. Sometimes the winning team has less hits, this happends when a team does a number of things (draw more base on balls (Walk), steal more bases, sacrificed more runners into scoring position/home etc...). It is really hard to win a baseball game however when you don't score any runs at all. We had enough hits to put up a couple of runs, they just happened to come when there were no runners on base. It is also tough to continue pitching without the lead for the whole game. Your job is to try not to make the come back any harder for the offense, yet tonight the offense didn't produce anything. With the weather being the way it has been for the past few days no one is out of any game at any time. Your mentality going into a game has to be the same whether it is 90 degrees and sunny or 60 degrees and raining. This isn't always easy, sometimes you field a ground ball that is soaking wet, or you slip on the dirt when you are rounding a base! Yet you can't complain because both teams have to play on the same field.

Getting it done on the road

Playing on the road is always a challenge. A two hour bus ride, new scenery/field, and fans cheering for the other team. However there are still 3 bases, home plate, an infield/outfield, and a fence all around right? We had another solid pitching performance from our whole staff, and scoring a run in the 1st inning got our offense off to a good start.

Easy guide to rebound

After yesterday's loss with Gallo on the mound it was easy to determine why we didn't end up with a win. Our bat's simply didn't get it done. As the game progressed I watched our at bats a little closer. It didn't seem like we were swinging at bad pitches, or even making terrible contact. On the contrary we made the pitcher throw strikes and work the count, he just happened to win the battle this time, and that's baseball. Our head coach Jason Falcon said it best "We just needed to put up more runs", which is usually the case in a loss, however 1 run is rarely going to get you there. Our team has a little bit of everything when it comes to our strengths as an offense, speed, power, base running intelligence, and passion. We had a chance to break the game open early on, however I grounded into a double play which prevented us from taking the lead. I felt like I had let down the whole team, but I had to forget about it quick since Gallo was getting a lot of ground balls. There was no way I was going to field consistent if I thought about the lost opportunity. When failure comes individually it helps to use someone's success to pick you up. Focusing on any kind of positive helps bring your emotion to a healthy level, therefore you don't have the option of bringing down the whole team with your negative emotion. This isn't always achieved by yourself however, I still haven't mastered the art of self picking up, yet I'm close. Chris Kowalski picked me up yesterday by simply stating "Who cares?". That's the kind of teammates you need on a team to be successful. It's baseball, that's all that needs to be said sometimes when we lose. Lets win the next one!

Pitchers spotting up

Getting ahead early in the game was key tonight. The weather wasn't great, so the energy might not have been at a great level, but it was the same for the other team. Getting ahead by a couple of runs can suck the energy out of the opposing team, and that is exactly what we did. It also gave our pitching staff a good enough cushion to fall back on, especially when using wooden bats. In any wooden bat league you aren't going to score runs unless you have a lineup that can put the ball in play with some power behind it. Sometimes power isn't even the correct term, just solid contact on the sweet spot of the barrel will do it's justice. Especially when the velocity is in the high 80's and above. Our pitchers tonight didn't even allow much contact tonight, and when they did it was either a pop up or a ground ball. When this is the case it is tough to lose.

Season so far / random thought

When pitchers shut a team down early in a game it gives their position players a lot more confidence going to the plate. This is the main reason our team has been so successful so far. We are scoring enough runs to give our pitchers a fighting chance as well. Our bats are pretty solid throughout the entire lineup, even if half of the lineup is struggling we manage to string a couple hits together. Since this is summer ball we are all very relaxed as well. At this particular level it feels like no one has to prove too much to each other, it is at this point more of a test within. Can I be the player I want to be with enough work? Can I be more consistent? Can I play the game and have fun? Heck yes! Playing for the Navigator's has made me feel like a semi-professional baseball player, therefor making this experience the high point in my baseball career. The American dream for me was to play professional baseball, and I am basically getting the biggest taste I could ask for without actually being there. What more could I ask for?

It is tough to play a game that involves so much failure and luck at the same time. That's why sometimes you just have to tip your cap, smile, and move on. As an infielder, you can't do anything about what the pitcher does, or where the ball is hit. All you can do is play your position to the best of your ability. I have been guilty of getting mad when a pitcher has given up a hit on an 0-2 count or in a big situation, but after I have seen other players react to similar situations I have really straightened my act up. Like many sports, thinking "I hope I don't look like that when I play", or "I would never put up with that if I played with them" can really separate a team. The best advice I could give anyone is to always be positive, this game generates too many emotions why should you try to bring any other kind into play?

Opening day

Whether it's a little kid racing the mascot around the bases, a dog catching frisbees, or a raffle giving away Red Sox tickets the fans enjoyed every bit of it. Entertainment takes many forms, some take money and others are making a child's dream come true. Every game isn't going to end in a victory, so for that reason alone the Navigator's wisely make sure that other events can still be there to enjoy. Opening day is huge in this regard I believe. Since the teams are different every year a fan has no idea what to expect. By announcing the Colleges and Universities each player attends the fans get a good idea of what kind of talent they are looking at. Winning was of course a great way to start the season but the fans also got a taste of the other forms of entertainment along with the quality/prices of the food. No ball park could survive without food and beverages, it just wouldn't be the same.

P.S.

Signing autographs by far is the coolest thing I have done since I learned how to do a reverse flip off a diving board. Not only did I feel like a star, I felt like the kids really had a good time at the game. In the end that is all that is important, without the fans this game wouldn't be what is it today.

Warming up

The Navigators are coming together as a whole and just now beginning to figure out the different personalities that are among us. Though it will take at least another week or so to learn every players name, we are all well aware what everyone can do on the ball field. Whether you watch batting practice or watch the team take fly balls and ground balls you can see that this team has plenty of potential. Like all teams it will take a few games to really see what we can do, learning our signals, bunt coverages, and pick off timings are moving along. We are all starting to warm up, and anxious for opening day. We are all waiting to prove ourselves to our fans, our families, and anyone else who is watching.