Ready to Start the Season in the Sun

The season opener is just five days away. On Sunday, we will be traveling to Winter Haven and Auburndale, Florida for a four game stretch during Spring Break. So far we have only been able to practice indoors and we all can’t wait to go outside on a field. It will certainly be a relief once we step outside for the first time, dig our cleats into the dirt of the batter’s box and shield the sun with our gloves as we hover under a fly ball.

This year, the team is young but experienced. While that may seem like a paradox, it aptly describes the way in which this year, we will build on the past while moving towards a better future. We boast only two seniors: Co-captain Ari Glantz, who earned a spot on the All-Liberty League Honorable Mention team last season, and Co-Captain Adam Murphy, who will hold down centerfield for the third straight season. The rest of the squad consists of juniors and sophomores who have garnered significant playing time over the past two seasons, as well as freshmen looking to have an impact in the everyday lineup. Junior second baseman, Joe Castilla, and I will likely make up the right side of the infield. Last year we started a combined 69 games. Meanwhile, the left side of the infield is younger, as two freshmen, Mike Perrone and Conor Gallagher, could be the opening day starters at shortstop and third base, respectively. A sophomore and member of last season’s All-Liberty League Honorable Mention team, Sal Constanzo also returns to the lineup along with sophomores Joseph Coniglio and Liam Lee, both of whom hit over .300 during their freshmen seasons. Sophomore John MacGregor leads a corps of young, but experienced pitchers, which includes sophomore Scott Allen and Junior Daniel Berkowitz. All three pitchers combined for 21 games started last season.

Having to play our first game of the season before we have our first outdoor practice of the season is a disadvantage. Then again, this is the same game we have been playing all our lives and you just don’t forget how to play over the winter. This year, we have a team that can overcome obstacles like this and take this program to the next level.

Replacing Hope With Confidence

Last week, Washington Post reporter Chico Harlan wrote that the Washington Nationals have replaced hope with confidence. “They are talking like a group confident, not hopeful, of being on the right path,” he wrote. When the first week of baseball practice started at 6 a.m. in the varsity weight room on Monday, it was evident that the same can be said about the Vassar Baseball team. There is less talk about what we hope to do this year and more about what we know we will do. In fact, there is less talking as a whole. Perhaps, that’s because confidence sounds different than hope. When a player is hopeful, he talks about what he wants to do in the upcoming season. When a player is confident, he shows what he is going to do by his actions in practice. Throughout this season’s practices it seems that we are more focused than ever.

During this past week, the theme of practice was fundamentals. After 6 a.m. lift on Monday we reconvened that evening in the Walker Field House for practice and although we went on to practice every day except Sunday, we have yet to field a ground ball and only hit live batting practice once. We worked on our swings off the tee, perfected our footwork in the field and conditioned. Throughout practice it has been clear that hope has been replaced with confidence. And with seven returning starters in the field and eight freshmen, we finally have the tools to back up that newfound confidence.

The Annual Alumni Game: Reliving the Glory

Last week I wrote about how baseball is timeless: not only in the sense that the game is measured by innings rather than minutes, but also that it has the power to bring out the child within. There is no greater example of this than the annual Alumni Game. Last Saturday, Vassar baseball alumni from various generations gathered on Prentiss Field to recapture their college baseball days. The nostalgia for baseball was as thick as in Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days: “I had a friend was a big baseball player… but all he kept talking about was glory days.”

A lot has changed about Vassar baseball since some of the alumni played (a new field, for example). But what hasn’t changed is a love for the game, for the Vassar baseball program, and for the school. These passions have persisted throughout all the generations of Vassar baseball. They are what keep the alumni coming back year after year.

Alfonso Lopez, a Vassar graduate of ’92 hit a screaming line drive, which I jumped up and snared out of the air, robbing him of a base hit, and perhaps, a chance to relive his glory days. (He proceeded to shout: “I know your dad!” which is true, though I didn’t know at the time or I would not have been so unkind as to get him out.) But I imagine that getting a base hit was not necessary for Alfonso to rekindle his glory days. Because Vassar baseball is about more than just one base hit here or there. It is about the camaraderie we form with our teammates and coaches. And perhaps, the alumni are still basking in their glory days when they come back and see all their old friends and teammates, and marvel at how far the program they left behind has grown.

Baseball Transcends Time In A 50 Inning Game

Baseball is timeless. There is no set number of minutes to be played. A game could last nine innings or it could last 50, like it did last Saturday when we split into two teams and played a 50 inning game to raise money for our spring trip to Florida.

We began at 9 am. A pitching machine was rolled out to the mound and everybody on the team, including pitchers, came to the plate more than 20 times. We played different positions in the field; positions we had never played before but always dreamt about playing. Left-handed pitchers played shortstop and outfielders played infield. It was a day not only for us to raise money, but also recapture the youthful innocence of playing baseball.

Because, you see, baseball transcends time in another sense as well. As reclusive author Terrance Mann says in Field of Dreams, “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

Indeed, when we sit and watch a game at Wrigley Field on a warm July day in the year 2009, we may as well be watching the same game on that same July day in 1989. We can see our childhood heroes running those same 90 feet between bases that the players of today run. The game hasn’t changed. It has remained timeless. And it revitalizes the child within.

Fall Ball Is Our Spring Training

Sometimes the first hit is the hardest hit for a batter to get. Whether it’s the first hit of the game, when you’re just getting your initial looks at the pitcher or the first of the season when you’re not quite comfortable at the plate yet. Or the first of a college career when you’re nervous and not quite sure what to expect.

Last Saturday, we played a double header exhibition against cross-town foe SUNY New Paltz. All the freshmen on the team that are primarily position players got their first college hits. It’s a sign that the program is growing, not only for this year, but for years to come. But the freshmen were not the only ones to write a new chapter in the book of their baseball careers. For us returning players, it’s time to turn the page and start fresh. The old adage about Spring Training is that teams renew themselves just as the plants come back to life after the cold winter. Fall ball is our Spring Training. The spirits of the players are high and new energy is flowing throughout the team. We’ve taken the first steps, we’ve gotten our first hits, and now it’s time for this team to reach the next level.

Eager for the New Season

The Fall baseball season started at 5:30 am on Monday. It was supposed to start at 6 am, when we were to gather in the Varsity Weight Room for our first official team workout. But a half-hour earlier, we were already awake, standing outside the weight room, anxious and excited to start the season. The morning workout consisted of power-lifts, loud music, and team bonding. There is something about the weight room that seems to bring us together. Perhaps it is the common, but unspoken knowledge that we are all willing to work hard to improve on the years past. A team breakfast at the All Campus Dining Center and a mid-morning nap followed the workout and then it was time to reconvene at the most beautiful field in the conference for our afternoon practice.

The weight room may be where we get stronger as individuals, but the field is where we get stronger as a team. During intersquad scrimmages on Monday and Wednesday, it became clear that we have more options at different positions than we did during my previous two seasons. With eight new freshman and returning starters at every position in the field except one, there is competition for every starting job. Competition can bring out the best in players. It is human nature not to work as hard as you can when your job is secure, when there is nothing or nobody pushing you. That is not the case this year. With a team stacked with players at every position, it seems everybody is willing to work their hardest to win the starting job… even if it means showing up a half-hour early to 6 am team lifts.