Freshman Awards Night

Final Record: 11-9 (6-4 Mission League)

MVP: Christian Priori Priore
Best Offensive Player: Danny Avalos
Best Pitcher: Francisco Cerda ¡Víva Chile!
Gold Glove: Nick Morton

Congrats to my boys...love the work that was put in. This team got better over the course of the season, and the nucleus of it will be a force to be reckoned with as they progress through their high school careers and, hopefully, beyond. I'm certainly going to miss the games, but it's time for me to reclaim my Saturdays as my own.

Egg egg, boys.

Freshman Baseball (Short)

[SCENE]

Notre Dame HS; 6th inning; umpire rings up pinch hitter on check swing

DL: Whitey, what you got? On the call or on the swing?
Umpire: I have the pitch a strike, and I have a swing
DL: Well you're 0 for 2 on one call. Good for you.

[END SCENE]

Negligence

I really can't use the move as an excuse anymore, so I suppose my lack of blogging activity has been the product of negligence. Quick update, but I'm feeling lazy and don't want to really elaborate. The team is doing well overall, but I still have yet to see us win since Thousand Oaks. We're hitting a little better, but we just find more new and creative ways to cough up games. On the up side, Coach Clark gave me a stay of execution...for at least another week. I just need to find a voodoo doll before Notre Dame next Saturday.

Speaking of that game, we may have a verifiable army of fans. Catherine, Princess, Sarah and Cheryl have all given at least a soft verbal to show up. Cannot wait to hear what kinds of questions the four of them get from all of our players' mothers in the stands. That will be interesting a debacle.

On a related note, I am still wandering the labyrinth. I haven't officially been fed to the minotaur yet, but I'm definitely still just wandering. Oh well.

Work is fascinating...lots of account turnover, so I'm rolling ALU Services, Eltek Valere, Fulcrum Microsystems and Guidance Software with an eye toward Mobicip and hoping some new business stuff falls our way soon. Busy times.

The car situation is a fiasco...I got the runaround the first time and was told that I just needed new tires. Wrong answer, Frank. I got four new ones, and my car is still making that obnoxious noise for which I HAVE ALREADY BROUGHT IT BACK IN ONCE (only to be told I needed new tires). Hope you're ready to chat with me tomorrow morning and explain to me why you can't get this right. I've been more than patient, Frank. Your people are sick of seeing me, and I'm sick of not having my car in the condition it should be in. Just get it back to me and get it right. I'm not asking you to do anything out of the ordinary. I'm just asking to you do...*gasp*...your job.

Other than that, I have spent a good chunk of my weekend sitting on my porch in a canvas chair playing the guitar. I am not looking forward to tomorrow, but the rest of the week shouldn't be too tragic. Hopefully, this is not a case of "famous last words." We shall see. Have a good week, everyone!

There is no other explantion. We are hated.

The baseball gods have frowned upon the Crespi freshman team. I don't know if it's the baseball sins of their coaching staff, or the ugly uniforms, or what the deal is, but they hate us. Another battle that we were right in until the end, resulted in another L.

We lined into three inning-ending double plays. These were not baserunning errors. These were balls absolutely scorched right at infielders...no shot to avoid getting doubled. Even at that, we were still in the game down 2-1 when we rallied and picked up a run in the top of the 7th to tie it. We then threw up a zero in the bottom half to take it to extras...where we got left on the field by a run scored by the leadoff hitter who got on via a bitch hop that almost killed my 2B.

Such is life...we're sitting at 2-4 and could easily be 6-0 (or 0-6), so I suppose it depends on how you look at it. I'm getting frustrated for the kids, though. They're battling and competing like crazy (which is the first/most important rule) and seeing little of it translating in the win column. We're going to see very quickly what they're made out of mentally. So far, I still love what I see with these guys and think that when all is said and done, this will be one of the better classes to come through Crespi. We just gotta keep grinding.

This, by the way, is when I REALLY hate that I gave up drinking for Lent. I need a beer.

Ugh

More awful at bats with runners in scoring position. 7-5 L. I'll write more when I'm not so bitter. (So...probably not until we pick up another win. Hopefully Saturday at Loyola.)

Freshman Report: 500

Beautiful number...and can be used to describe our record after a 10-4 W at Thousand Oaks Saturday. If was a little dicey for a while, as we did the usual kick it around and throw it away on defense, but once we woke the bats up, there was no shot they were catching us.

For freshmen, these kids bang...seriously. I saw a couple balls hit Saturday that guys in varsity lineups can't barrel up to as well as these kids. There isn't anyone in the lineup that I would consider a soft out, and there are a handful who can steal bases like it's their job.

Good stuff going on this week...taking a half day off of work on Wednesday for the big away showdown against the Fighting Hillmans Seraphs of St. Bonaventure. Hopefully in between leaving work at noon and heading to St. B for the game, I am picking up the Amazin'. Then on Saturday, it gets even more interesting, as Coach Clark has an interview with the LAFD and can't make the game, so I get the league opener at Loyola by myself. Back to giving signs and coaching 3B. This is going to be a gong show, but I'm such a control freak...I love it.

WINNER WINNER

Chicken dinner...the froshies finally decided to quit playing defense with their feet, and they picked up a W! The baby Celts (1-2) avoided the error bug that had bit them the first two games and swung the bats a bit to pick up the 13-5 W against Cleveland. Gotta even the record Saturday when Coach Legaspi makes the regular season on-field debut. The "Last Call" with Clark and Legaspi turns into the niner and fiver show. Not sure who thought it was a good idea to put these two idiots in charge of freshmen, but it's too late now. Game on!

As the Muck Says...

"Fellas...we learned something today. We aint gonna win 'em all."

I have yet to get the full scouting report on the game from Coach Clark, but the frosh fell 6-5 to Hart in game one today. Not all 6-5 L's are created equal, and with major question marks coming into the game, there is probably a light at the end of the tunnel. The game now is to teach these boys how to win because by the limited account that I got, it was runners stranded in scoring position and a couple key defensive lapses that did us in. I hate losing, but I love challenges. They're freshmen. They're going to screw these things up. As a staff, it's our job to fix it. We've got work to do.

Sidebar: No frosh game tomorrow...helping Coach Lauer with the JVs. Should be interesting.