Béisbol de Oglethorpe

So, OU baseball has joined the recent MLB trend and has gone global with its players. Mario Rivera, a freshmen pitcher from Honduras, joined the team this past fall and quickly became one of the most popular players on the team. He speaks great English, but in my effort to reach out to my players I have tried to pick up some key baseball terms in his native language. Boy, I wish I would have worked a little harder during my three years of high school Spanish. Luckily for me I have found a great site that helps me with Spanish baseball terms.

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/education/dictionary/english_spanish/C.htm


Mario, bienvenido a Atlanta y Oglethorpe...

This, That and the Other...

The first four days of practice have progressively gotten better and better....

Day One: A little sloppy and the guys were dragging a little. Maybe the conditioning test wore down their legs...but hey, the whole team made it, that has to be a first.

Day Two: Wind, rain and the dreaded indoor practice. The Schmidt Center or "Mustard Jar" is great for....well.....just about nothing. Its hard to see the balls against the yellow walls, the rubber floor is so darn slippery, running drills are like watching ice capades. Tim Ernst and Brendan Pilger will now perform the double hitch, full frontal, single side swipe.....oh.....too bad....Ernst can't hold it....too bad.....

Day Three: Back outside, this time in the arctic tundra. The worst part is practice starts at 6pm...just in time for the sun to duck around the other side of the world. Batting practice, tee work and soft toss rule the night and sting the hands. Dragging the infield at 9pm in slight freezing drizzle is always a good time.

Day Four: Back inside...more tee work, soft toss and wiffle balls. Pitchers have their first workout with new pitching coach David Wolensky. I think this pitching staff is going to surprise some people.

Day Five: Batting practice and batting practice...I'm not going to lie, my arm hurts and my body is sore. But the first rule is: Don't show the guys any weakness....The hitting today is much better than any other time this week. Saturday will bring some live pitching and hitting together, should be interesting.

Basketball has a double-header against Sewanne on Saturday starting at 6pm....see you there.

Go PETRELS !!

It's that time of Year!!

The smell of freshly cut grass, the sound of leather rawhide hitting an aluminum bat and the frost bite nipping at your nose....Yep, you got it, Oglethorpe Baseball is back and ready for the 2007 campaign. Unseasonably warm 70 degree January days have given way to 35 degree, foggy, rainy miserable afternoons. Not that we have come to expect anything less. Around January every year until May I put on my weatherman cap and watch countless hours of moving cold fronts, low pressure systems, prevailing winds and whatever the heck El Nino really means to us in Atlanta...

2007, my third year as the Head Coach and my eighth year at Oglethorpe, seems to be starting like every other baseball season before, but something tells me it won't end the same. In 2002, a magical year indeed (yes, OU actually gave me a degree) but more importantly the last time the Diamond Petrels were the Champions of anything; Beast in the East, SCAC East Division Champs...sounds good, sounds really good. Four years have passed, and the 2007 Petrels are ready to sit atop the perch once again. We are excited about this year and the future of the program. Young talented players combined with a few seasoned vets could spell trouble for the SCAC East this year. The past is the past.....fresh faces and energizing attitudes will make Anderson Field the place to be this spring.

Oglethorpe Baseball will blog their quest for a SCAC Championship in 2007. I guarantee some interesting posts, and a roller coaster ride through the life of Division III athletes, coaches and fans. I will ask the student-athletes, coaches, administrators, fans, parents and alumni to contribute to the blog on their experiences past and present. Stay tuned, its all about the journey.....but this time the ending will be different.


So, where do we start......well...at the beginning.