Pictures from Workday!

Home dugout at the start of the cleaning. We have more leaves and pine cones on our field than any other field in America!

Nice and clean. I can't tell you the stuff we found in the dugout. I think we found an old sock from Candy LaRue! He graduated in 1999.

L to R: Nick "Ladies Man" Greenfield, Brad "She's a" Brickhouse and Matthew "You complete me" Cornwell.

Two St. Pius parents unload some heavy gravel, while Mr. Greenfield thinks to himself "How many rocks can the John Deere hold...1,2,3...."

Mr. Llano with that patented smile and laughing at one of the guys jokes.. What he's really thinking about is that cigar he's about to smoke! I would be smiling, too.

St. Pius Saturday school. When I was in Catholic school, detention was copying the rules over and over...What this picture doesn't show is the kid in nice dress pants and a shirt and tie! Did he call Big Dern for the dress code on work day?

"The Hill" is much better! We found 8,723 baseballs buried in the growth. One had a faint note "Thanks for the sandwich, it helped me rip some hits today" and the signature, Hack Hermance 1938.

One Week to Go...

A week from now we should have a better idea of who will run for the President of the US........Oh, wrong blog. A week from now the LaGrange Panthers will come pranching into Anderson Field for the Opening of the 2008 season. There is much work to be done before then, but the guys are ready to start playing someone else.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate for us to go live Saturday (1pm) and Sunday (10am) this weekend. If you are in or around town stop on by and get an early preview of your Petrels!

Petrels to play in Red Birds Nest

When your Petrels visit Memphis, TN for a 4-game set against Rhodes March 14th-16th, the first game of the series will be played at AutoZone Park home of the Memphis Red Birds, AAA affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Thanks goes out to Rhodes for setting up the unique opportunity to play in one of the best Minor League Stadiums in the country. AutoZone Park is located in the heart of downtown Memphis. Gametime is set for 3pm on March 14th.

A Busy Weekend...

We have a lot to catch up on, so we'll get right into it.

First, great weekend for recruiting as we hosted 260+ JEO students, including a couple of potential baseball recruits. JEO is OU's scholarship competition weekend where highly qualified students come to Atlanta for a couple of days and compete for the ultimate award of a full scholarship for four years (actually compete for several awards). This year Oglethorpe rolled out the red carpet with a fantastic cocktail hour and dinner at The 755 Club at Turner Field Saturday night. I will say right now Anderson Field looks way better than Turner Field! No joke....but that will change in about two months. NCAA rules prohibit me talking about our recruits but we hope to see you in the fall at Oglethorpe.

Workday was a huge success! A HUGE Thank You goes out to John and Sara Pilger who organized the event. Also, thank you to all the parents who braved the chilly temps and those who sent good wishes and provided lunch. Gravel was spread, dirt was moved and those St. Pius detention kids did a heckuva job on the hill. Thanks to Coach Winland for his help!

On to the Petrels: Three days of live action where the pitchers threw two innings each and we saw the hitters in game like action. We are very pleased with the progress of the team and the effort the guys are giving. I thought we hit fairly well considering this was the first live pitching of the season and the blustery conditions. Defensively we got better and better each day culminating in a error free game today. The little things like cutoffs and relays continue to get better. Pitching was solid all three days. Much improvement is needed but its a good start. We have so many options to go lineup wise, and it would be very hard to pick a starting nine as of today. 9 Days to the Opening game we have a long way to go.