A Road Trip and a Makeover

The wireless Internet access at our hotel in East Hanover, NJ was poor at best so I was unable to give real time updates of the road trip. In terms of wins and losses, it was not a great trip for my Defenders squad. We got off to a fast start with wins on back to back nights in Sussex but then faltered, losing the final four games of the trip. The low point was a Father's Day double header at Yogi Berra Stadium, home of the league leading New Jersey Jackals. On the day I think we only managed four or five hits as a team and scored only one or two runs....not exactly the type of support our pitchers hope for. The weather for the entire trip was miserable, that's all I will say about it for now but the topic of weather will be revisited later in this issue.

The second game in Sussex was a tough night for your author and it marked the first time I have ever had to remove myself from a game due to an injury. It was the bottom on the first inning and the game felt about as normal as could be. There was nobody out and a runner, Jorge Moreno, on first base. The batter sent a grounder up he middle which our second baseman dove to field. Boomer was able to glove the ball but didn't field it cleanly and his momentary bobble allowed Jorge to gather more speed as he prepared for his slide. Boomer flipped me the ball and then the next thing I felt was the knee of a very large, very fast man slam into my quad. I sort of flipped over the runner in an attempt to avoid further contact but as I gathered myself it was clear that I wouldn't be in the game much longer. I stayed in for the remainder of the inning but had to be removed from the game once i hobbled back into the dugout. Now, I do not necessarily know if what the runner did should qualify as a "dirty" play. Usually when trying to break up double plays, guys keep their slides low. It is sort of an unwritten rule that you shouldn't be trying to hit an infielder in the knee, which this runner certainly seemed to be trying to do. As an infielder, I know that it is my job to protect myself and that sometimes contact is going to happen at the bag but something about this particular play rubbed me the wrong way, literally. I guess my real problem with the whole thing was that immediately after the play Moreno gets up and says, "esta bien papi?" ("you ok man" basically). This is a trend that truly annoys me. A guy comes in and puts his knee on mine and wants to know if I'm ok. I just don't think you can have it both ways....if you want me to be ok, don't try to end my career by sliding high. If you don't want me to be ok, that's fine, just make your slide and get off the field. Anyway, the collision at second made me miss the remainder of the game and the next two as well. A rain out gave me an extra day to treat the injury and I was able to play again on Father's Day which was fortunate because my parents had been in New Jersey watching me gimp around for 3 days. I was glad to be able to play while they were still in attendance. Now that I have returned to playing I couldn't help but wonder how many times someone like Cal Ripken got taken out like I did during his unheard of streak of consecutive games. Just another reason why that it is the greatest record in the entire history of organized sports.

After the injury and the rain and the losing we finally returned home to Nashua but not before a very interesting ride home. The thought of long, crazy bus rides cause ball players to cringe or to wake up in a cold sweat and this one was one for the books. I have had some long ones....13 hours from St. George, UT to Chico, CA and I have had some crazy ones....breakdown in St. Mary's County, Maryland in the middle of the night but the ride home from Jersey will be seared into my memory for a long while. For starters let's have a brief geography lesson. As we all know, New Hampshire is undoubtedly NORTH of New Jersey, correct?? Good, so it would make sense that upon leaving New Jersey, NORTH would be good choice of direction if the choices were between north or south, agreed?? Glad you are following. Well, apparently our fearless bus driver wasn't able to make these deductions and so we left Yogi Berra stadium and started heading for Newark, NJ which is SOUTH of our intended destination. I don't want to completely throw the guy under the figurative "bus", because those guys have tough jobs but I just have to mention one other part of the story. During the 30 minutes he was taking us on a field trip through central Jersey, his GPS (which, as you may be aware, are fairly reliable) was telling him to turn around and drive the opposite direction. He, of course, ignored the Voice's commands and it wasn't until we saw a sign welcoming us to Newark, NJ that he changed our course and started the trek north. The highway still wouldn't yield to our driver's wishes because once he got us pointed the right direction, he steered us right into Sunday evening New York City traffic which cost us more time. The best part was that he allegedly said, "I couldn't figure out why the GPS kept telling me to turn around", when we were basically driving towards Miami. All told, he found a way to turn a 4 hour drive into a 6 hour drive but as they always do, he got us home.

On Monday we hosted the Sussex Skyhawks who were making their first trip to Nashua this season. It was another rainy day and the forecast predicted that the rain would be continuing all night. This now brings me to the re-visitation of weather and the role it can play in the outcome of a baseball game. Aside from all of the adverse physical conditions rain causes (wet ball, wet mound, tough footing, etc) I think its most lasting impact on the game occurs in the psyche of players. This is a bit of an abstract concept and I am having a hard time putting my finger on it. Basically, when you wake up and see sun shining, birds chirping, etc, you start the day KNOWING you will have your game and you prepare mentally accordingly. However, when you sit around the house and the club house watching rain all day, it creates a very different mental approach. You are almost expecting the game to be called and then when the game is on, you have to flip a switch and get ready to play. I know that we should not allow ourselves this type of mental lapse but I think it happens sometimes. The best "real world" example I can think of is when you have a test at school but there is 3 inches of snow forecasted for test day. What do you do?? The easy answer is, "you study and if school gets cancelled, no harm done" but we have all been in that situation, who really wants to study the night before a possible snow day? That being said, the other team has to deal with the same conditions and recently the other teams have been winning under those conditions when they play us. Bottom line, we need to prepare to win every night, come hell or high water. Everyone always talks about "the will to win" well I think the "will to prepare to win" is even more important. A lot of times I think I would like to wear those blinders that they give to race horses, it allows them to see only one thing, the track in front of them. They don't see the distractions and they run the race.

Finally, the Defenders got a bit of a personnel makeover yesterday. The contract of veteran first baseman Clyde Williams was sold to the Brockton Rox and utility infielder and former Green Beret, Chris Weakley was released. This now leaves us with nine position players but I'm sure replacements are on the way. We did acquire a pitcher, a guy who actually served in the Marines and was awarded the purple heart in Iraq. It is always tough to see guys you know and like get shipped out but that is the business. The home stand continues, as do the horrid weather conditions. Can someone order me those blinders??