Finally, it’s here!

Snow covered dome that we have been practicing in

After what seemed like the longest six weeks of practice ever, the Concordia University Golden Bears are finally ready to take the field. We battled the blistering weather throughout January, February, and in to the first couple of days of March, but finally we made it to sunny Orlando, Florida. It was a long day to get here, starting with check in at the airport at 5:45am. Our flight from MSP took off at roughly 7:50am and three hours later we touched down to 78 degrees and sunny.

We collected our bags, packed the vans, and headed to Bahama Bay Resort to get settled in. After lunch we had our first outdoor practice since the month of October. It was just a quick infield-outfield and on-field batting practice, but it was great to be outdoors under the sun. Practice today was at the Chain of Lakes baseball complex, the former spring training home of the Cleveland Indians, and before the Indians, the Boston Red Sox.

The season kicks off tomorrow against the 15^th ranked West Chester (Pa.) University at 4:30pm EST. It should be a great matchup as we both have infielders on the Tino Martinez National Player of the Year watch list. Tomorrow is the season opener for both squads as we both had weather-related cancellations in our February games.

To update readers on what we have been doing in preparation for the season, we have continued to have our pitchers face our hitters in our indoor facility. Pitchers have stretched out their arms with our five main starters throwing six sets of 15 pitches (90 pitches) on multiple occasions to prepare for their starts. Relievers, including myself, have thrown varying sets of 1x15, 2x15, or 3x15 depending on the day. This has given our hitters ample opportunity to see live pitching and get their timing down.

The season will start in a hurry with eight games in eight days, including a day off on Wednesday, and a double-header against in-conference foe Minnesota Crookston on Saturday before we head back home.

Now that the season is here, I will be able to put up more frequent posts about what is going on with Golden Bear baseball. We came to Florida to win games and get ready to go back to compete for an NSIC championship.

With the first trip of the year I wanted to debut a new section to the blog, the travel reading. I enjoy reading as a way to pass the time, so each trip I will feature a new book I have read and that I would suggest.

Travel Reading:

This week’s selection is The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst. Hayhurst is a pitcher in the Blue Jays organization that has logged big league time. Hayhurst recorded his journey through the minor leagues in the book. It is one of the best baseball books I have ever read. The stories are things that all baseball players can relate too. He discusses his own personal battle with the fear of failure, and how he overcame self doubt. The book is also full of funny stories from the life and rituals of minor league baseball. I definitely suggest this book. I read this while flying to Hawaii this summer for summer league, and ended up passing it around to my team, and all of them thoroughly enjoyed it.

Shout Out of the Week:

Summer teammate Dan Simmons of UC-San Diego was named conference pitcher of the week

-Go Golden Bears-