That's a Wrap

Our final week pitted us against the Spokane Indians, the team I made my Northwest League debut against, in one final five game series at PK Park.  It was nice to get home after spending eight days on the road, and we had put ourselves in a situation where all we needed was to play one game better than Vancouver over the final five games to make the playoffs. 

We were tired, and flat in game one losing 6-1 which put us in a hole, we were behind Vancouver without them even beginning their series.  The next night we came out with a purpose and had a commanding hold on our 3-1 lead all night.  In the 9th we handed the ball over to Roman Madrid who had been as close to a sure thing all year, very rarely even allowing runners to get to second base.  As fate would have it we managed to watch 3 runs come across and score as we scratched our heads wondering how we could have possibly blown the biggest game of our season.  I lead off the bottom of the 9th with a bunt single, it was one of those crimes of opportunity.  Spokane had a high school graduate playing 3rd base, and he was way back and off the line.  Pat wasn't catching so there was nobody to yell at him that the slow kid could burn him with the short game. Rodney followed with a grinder walk, and Goose sacrificed himself to get us into scoring position.  Spokane walked Dane to load the bases with one out, in hopes of a game ending double play.  After a pitching change and two different hitters being announced it was time for Ronnie Richardson to shine.  Night Train, as Murph has called him, came up huge with a 2 strike game winning double to left field!  Vancouver lost, and so in one night we had reclaimed first place where we would remain until the last night.

Our final game was a tough one, a really crappy way to go out.  We fell behind 2-0 in the first inning and could never really muster any sort of comeback.  We had our chances, and Spokane's defense did everything it could to hand us the game, making 4 or 5 errors.  We loaded the bases with nobody out and thanks to two jam job swings and a double play we got nothing out of it.  As we went down in the 9th it began to sink in, this would be our last game together, the end of our season.  I stood on the top step of the dugout watching as Spokane's closer put us down in a hurry, two strike outs and a pop up later it was done.  It didn't feel real, there was a stunned silence in the dugout as every cleaned up their gear one last time.  I couldn't move. It didn't feel right, I just stood, staring at the scoreboard, staring at the crowd walking to the exits and then back out at our field. I was surprised by the fact that it was hard to deal with, it was eerily similar to our last game in Omaha in that it felt as though it hadn't happened, when clearly it had.

I unwrapped my wrist tape, sat down in the dugout for one last moment and then headed back to the clubhouse.  It was a very weird scene, guys sat in their lockers not knowing what the protocol was for the end of a professional season.  Were we supposed to pack up and empty our lockers? Were we supposed to wait? Was there a speech coming, were we supposed to sit and think for a while?  It was all very strange as we tried to figure out what to do.  We finally got the speeches, clean ups and lockers finished and suddenly the clubhouse was extremely bare.  I walked out the tunnel as I had so many times, but knowing it would be the last time.  I saw Sarah and Allan outside and thanked them both for giving us all such a wonderful place to play and for taking care of us all summer.  I felt compelled to apologize for not making the playoffs, I felt terrible that after all the winning we had done that it was all for not.  That night we went out one last time and said goodbye as our flights would all be broken up over the next two days, and there was no telling when any of us would be leaving. 

The view of the opening kick off of Oregon's 2012 football season.
Considering how last minute it was, we got some pretty good seats!!

Saturday I received my itinerary for my 15 hour travel day back to New York.  I had lunch with Mallex, Ronnie and Madrid at 6th Street Grill.  We spent the day watching college football, while Dane Phillips and I texted back and forth trying to figure out how to get tickets to the Oregon vs. Arkansas State game later that night.  I called Allan and he managed to come up huge introducing us to the Oregon ticket director.  Before we left we picked up Chabot and Shepherd who had also talked about going.  We met Allan at the office and before we knew it had purchased our tickets.  We were going to sit in section 27, 38 rows up.  We had no idea what that meant in terms of where in the stadium we would be, but we had seats and we were happy.  We met up with some friends for pregame tailgating, and hung around trading stories about the summer, our plans for the off-season and any other random topic that came up.  We headed inside and found that our seats were right on the goal line, along the sidleline and had extra leg room as we were in the front row of the division of section 27.  The game was a total blow out, the Ducks lead 50-3 at half time, and half already taken their starters out.  We left and went to walk around the tailgate areas again.  Shepherd and Chabot managed to get lost coming out of the stadium so me and Dane got to walk around for a while, and ran into our favorite Dominican, Genison Reyes.  Reyes told us all about his first "football Americano" experience and how he liked baseball better.  We then trekked back to the hotel and hung around with Clark, Margie, her roommate, Mallex, Picca and Reynolds until we all decided to get some sleep in anticipation of our departures which ranged from 3:45 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

Looking back it was a wonderful experience, and I truly enjoyed my time in Eugene. I met some really interesting people, some far more memorable than others and got my feet wet in the world of professional baseball.  I will always remember my first game up in Spokane, my first home game at PK which ended with Ronnie's walk off homer against Vancouver.  I will remember my daily routine of sitting outside the clubhouse during visitors BP and listening to "Kick It In The Sticks" Pandora station while enjoying free drinks Kelly always gave us and talking to Kody, Stefan and all the other people that would pass by during their pregame preparation.  I have made some friendships that will last far beyond the 47 games that I played for the 2012 Eugene Emeralds.  In closing out this season I want to thank everyone who followed along my journey, and welcome you to begin checking for updates again in a week when I get to Arizona for Instructional League.  Last but not least, to everyone in Eugene that supported our team thank you! It was great to come home from road trips knowing we'd have a big crowd to welcome us back to PK Park, we loved playing for you, and you provided a big boost in a lot of games by rallying behind us.  Until instructs, I'm done!

On the Road Again

We finished out our homestand with back to back one run wins over Salem Keizer last week before hearing the dreaded sound of our alarm clocks at 4:45 am on Sunday.  We all groggily wandered downstairs to meet Rick and our bus, pillows in hand anxiously awaiting our departure so that we could get back to sleep sooner.  This was the first trip that anybody has been late for, and we actually left the hotel without one of our bullpen guys.  We're not sure exactly why he wasn't on the bus, but there were mentions of "chingy chingy"and a wry smile from the lanky Dominican that indicated he was probably out with a particular lady friend he has in Eugene.  We drove to the field to pick up our equipment that we had packed the night before and to check our jobs for the trip.  Each road trip there is a list of jobs posted, with players assigned to certain duties:

• Strength bags
• Clubhouse bags
• "Turtle" bags (these are the athletic training bags, and they're called the Turtle bags because Murph calls our trainer Turtle)
• Hat box
• Bat Bag

I was assigned to the strength bag, so for the first time I had a job other than getting my gear onto the bus. I grabbed one of the navy mesh SD logo bags with dumbells, stretching bands, tubing and other things related to working on our bodies and carried it out with my gear bag. We piled back onto the bus and were delighted to find the missing pitcher on board, we quickly laid out the foam mattress pads all along the floor of the bus and in no time at all we were asleep and on the way to Everett.

Yup, soft pillows and firm pillows. Hysterical.

We arrived in Everett, Washington to find that our rooms weren't all ready and so about half the team was stuck sitting in the lobby waiting.  I quickly stole Chabot's PSVita and began to play MLB The Show to pass the time.  At around 1:30 Chris O'dowd and I got our room keys and headed upstairs.  I immediately upon walking into the room began laughing uncontrollably as we noticed that the pillows were labelled "firm" and "soft." Not that funny right? It was one of those, you had to be there memories.  During a trip to Bakersfield, California my freshman year at school we had arrived at 4 or 5 am and Lucky and I found these tags on our pillows and for no reason at all began hysterically laughing. 

After a quick nap we proceeded to take a long, cold, miserable, ugly nap during what was supposed to be game one against the AquaSox.  It was a 7-1 loss, our only run coming in the top of the 9th on a passed ball.  We were asleep for this one and it was apparent.  We got some sleep on our choice of pillows and were back at it for two more the next two nights.  I left the ballpark with some interesting news however, and that was that I'd make my career debut at first base in game two.  I also found out that I had been selected to go to Instructional League, a 3 week camp similar to Spring Training, that is held after short season is over. It is an opportunity to get some time playing in front of the front office brass, the major decision makers, and an opportunity to work with our organization's instructors.  I was extremely excited to get an invite, even though it means that I won't be getting home until probably mid October.

One view of Everett Municipal Stadium's quirky outfield.

Our next two games were good wins for the team, and I played first base both games.  I managed to break an ugly 0-13 slide that brought my average down almost 30 points, which normally would have meant I'd have a mental breakdown.  I forced myself to stay mentally resilient and to focus on all the positive things I was doing, drawing my walks, playing good defense and hitting the ball hard in order to not have my usual mid-season crisis. We took two of three from Everett and more important, we picked up a game on Vancouver who lost last night. We're now just a single game out of the playoffs with exactly 10 games remaining.

Right field view of the outfield.

In a completely random side story, the gym that we worked out at in Everett happened to be a crossfit gym used by a lot of Everett Silvertips hockey players.  This meant that in the back of the gym was a small fake ice shooting range for the players to work on their puck skills.  I made sure to take full advantage of it, as I went to town firing probably 200 pucks at the net, another 200 off the glass, and a few more off the posts just because I miss doing it in real life.  I continue to be surprised by how much I really do miss playing hockey, but as long as I can get out and shoot around like that every so often I can do without the crashing and bashing of going into the corners!

More New Faces

We arrived home from Yakima with a 3-2 series win and an 8 game homestand staring us down.  I found out early in the day that two more guys had been sent down to Arizona and that we would be getting more new guys in time for our series with Tri-City.  Word spread quickly that Burke and Colon were out and that Quintanna and Guerrero were coming in.  What we didn't know was that Mallex Smith, who I got to know pretty well during my time in Arizona, our lockers were very close, was also coming up.  With Ronnie Richardson dealing with an injury we needed an outfielder and Mallex got the call. 

Our first game with Tri-City looked more like an ugly batting practice scrimmage.  Hit after hit after hit, run after run after run, error after error.  It added up to a lopsided win for us, but it was about a 4 hour game that was a pain to suffer through. Mallex had two hits in the first inning and then dropped an inside the park home run in the 7th for one of the most impressive debuts I've seen.  When I got back to the hotel I found out the he would be moving in with me, and so for the first time since Del Castillo got sent to Arizona I have a roommate. 

Game two was a tough loss as we stranded a whole whack of runners and lost by a small margin, 5-3. Our errors and miscues added up and we were unable to mount a late inning comeback.  We all felt like we were in the game right up until the 9th, so much so that Kai, Murph's son, decided to leave the team box to get dressed in uniform and spend the last few innings in the dugout.  Kai is normally in our dugout, hanging out with the guys and doing random odd jobs for the players and coaches. He had chosen to sit upstairs with his dad during the game, Murph was serving a suspension after being tossed while we were in Yakima, but felt like he should be in uniform at the end of the game.  When I asked him why he decided to come down so late, he told me he wanted to be in the picture of our walkoff celebration. 

My first ever pro baseball card! I'm sure most
have already seen this either on Facebook, or
Twitter but its still cool

We won the last two nights without much flare or excitement.  The new faces continued to roll in, not just in the form of new players but in the form of all the minor league instructors.  Jonesy, the infield instructor arrived last night, and Glen Barker the outfield and base running instructor and Sean Berry the hitting instructor arrived the day before.  Randy Johnson (not the lefty) our pitching coordinator is here, as is "El Gato" another one of the pitching coaches.  Batting practice has turned into a fast 45 minute crash course in everything as we try to not only get our work in, but also to pick these guys brains for any little insight that might make our game better in any way.  Having Jonesy around means that I spend more time at 3rd base than normal, as he likes to keep me working on my footwork and throwing from the far side of the diamond.

The highlight of the last couple days has to be the fact that we got our Eugene Emeralds baseball cards.  Everyone was given a stack of 90 cards, and we used some to trade with the guys on the team to create a team set.  I'm now down to 70 cards, having reciprocated when other guys wanted to make a team set as well.  It's a pretty cool feeling having the stack of cards because it signifies the reality of this all.  There are some things that just say "I made it" and on a small scale this is one of them. 

The Daily Grind

I haven't posted in a while, so first of all I'll apologize for that. I haven't really had the time or the energy, as for the first time in my life I've figured out how to sleep in! I guess the daily grind has caught up to me, and I've learned a new skill out of it.  I'm not going to try and go back and fill gaps in crazy detail, there was a lot that went on since the end of July when I last wrote.  This post will cover our series here in Yakima, and maybe some other things.

Since the end of July we've managed to continue playing very hot and cold baseball, one day we score 10 and get 20 hits, the next we're shutout and get 5.  One day our pitching staff carves up a lineup and the next day its a mad scramble to find outs.  Such is baseball, however through it all we've had a lot of movement within our team and I think that has made things a touch more difficult.

Last week one of our infielders had to leave the team to go home and deal with a dying father.  I can't even imagine having to deal with something like that, that has to be the most horrible experience in any persons life.  That made extra roster room, along with the catcher shuffle which saw O'Dowd get the call to go up to Lake Elsinore, and Del Castillo get returned to Arizona.  For our home series against Vancouver Rodney Daal (catcher) and Felipe Blanco (SS) were called up.  Rodney made the most of it, jumping in head first with a swagger second to none.  For a really young kid he has a mentality that a lot of older guys can learn from, in his mind he is the best baseball player ever to play the game, and he plays with that sort of confidence.  It's very impressive, it doesn't hurt that he has what we call "light tower power," or the ability to hit the ball and make it either turn to dust or disappear into the sunset.  Blanco, who the Dominican guys in Arizona call "Chino," the Spanish word for Chinese (they think he looks Asian) is a young shortstop with all the tools to become a great ball player.  He is still learning though, and seemed a little outmatched in his three games with us. So after our third loss in a row to Vancouver he was sent back to Arizona, another face that was here one day and gone the next.  Gabby, the guy who stayed in Eugene with me while the team was in Vancouver also got sent to Arizona, more because he's been hurt and hasn't been able to play than anything else.

Looking toward the valley of doom that we stopped in.  It seemed like there
couldn't possibly be people, or life forms in the area, it was like another planet

Needless to say having teammates in and out of the revolving door we call the Minor Leagues is tough, it's very weird to show up to the ballpark and see empty lockers with name plates removed.  Now we're at the trip to Yakima.  We left the hotel in Eugene at 6 a.m., PSYCH, we were told we were leaving at six, but the bus didn't arrive until 7:30.  So, after returning to our rooms for an hour of sleep or video games we hit the road.  I slept for the first three hours, I brought a pillow, threw it on the floor of the bus and laid across the aisle with my feet tucked under Murph (player Murph, not Manager) and Roof's seat.  Having played three years of college baseball has given me some of the tools to make road trips bearable. We stopped at some rest station in some twilight zone area that really felt like we were on another planet.  Everything looked small, yet we were dwarfed by our surroundings.  We grabbed either Subway sandwiches or McDonalds and returned to the bus to watch Good Fellas and finish our trip to Yakima.  Having been to booming cities like Medicine Hat, Alberta and Bakersfield, California I was surprised by how exciting Yakima was.  There was a whole lot of nothing, coupled with a lot of dusty fields, trailers and a few chain restaurants like an Applebees and an Outback.  We went to the hotel and got to our rooms for a nap before heading to the field for our show and go appearance. 

The field sat idle before game one as we opted for the show
and go rather than batting practice after our long trip

No batting practice worked for us in game one as we pounded out hits, and hard hit outs en route to a win.  We arrived at the ballpark that day to find that our teammate who had been home with his ill father had returned to the team, it was a good shot in the arm as he's a great kid to have around.  Never mind he's a good player, but he's a good guy in the dugout and in the clubhouse.  We won both of the first two games pretty easily, we scored often and in bunches.  It was good to erase the memories of the Vancouver series in which we were stifled. 

Yakima's players in front of their dugout before game two
as the cages are setup for batting practice.

Last night wasn't our best effort of the summer, we were 5 hit and shutout.  We played a well enough to make the score respectable at only 2-0 but it wasn't much of a game.  We never had runners on base, never had the chances we had created the previous two nights.  After the game Murph let us have it in the locker room.  He called guys out, he called the team out.  It was a very similar style to what I had grown to know at Stony Brook, not so much about the physical play but about the process and the work.  Hopefully it will sink in this time, and we can start to get to that place that great teams get to, where the work is fun and therefore the games are just relaxed shows.  What we haven't gotten yet is the grind, the boring part of this life.  As Murph said in his meeting last night "greatness is boring, it's repetitive and it's boring!"


Today I'll be on the 2:30 bus again to get my shin splints (a lovely development from playing so many games on turf) worked on and then go over some video with Prieto our hitting coach. Then it will be back out to the dilapidated cages behind the center field wall to do some more work. A swing is never a finished product, so it will be more of the same today.

Cage Work and Bike Rides

Following our long series with Boise the team loaded up the bus and hit the road to go to Vancouver.  Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to go due to Visa issues, so I packed up my bag that I bring back and forth to the field and hotel, phone chargers, headphones and whatever other trinkets I need to stay occupied and headed back to the hotel.  I was happy to find out that Cody Gabella an infielder who I had met in Arizona and who was now back with the Ems was also staying behind nursing an injured leg.  I borrowed River's bike for the few days knowing I'd have to get to and from PK Park every day. 

As the team played its four game series north of the border Gabby and I enjoyed a pretty simple, easy schedule.  Each day around noon I'd wake up and we would exchange texts confirming that we'd meet in the lobby at around 1:30 to ride over to either Jimmy Johns or the Pita Pit for lunch. We'd eat, sit around for a few minutes to relax after having to ride our bikes a whole two blocks, and then make the trip over to PK.  We discovered an alternate route on the way back to the hotel after our first day at the park and it made life a hell of a lot simpler.  No uphill bridge riding, no crossing major streets without a light, and certainly a shorter distance.  When we arrived each day at the ballpark we'd head under the stadium to our clubhouse punch in the code on the security door and then sit in our lockers for a few minutes listening to music and playing games on our phones.  Again, nothing too taxing right away, just making sure to take care of the finely tuned machine that is a professional athlete's body.

Our routine at the field was pretty standard operation, we'd stretch for a few minutes in right field then walk through the bullpen, up the steps and into the temporary batting cages that the U of O has set up while the indoor facility is being built.  We did a few rounds of tee work with the mini bat, working on our top and bottom hand path, before moving to our regular bats for some tee work.  We would finish up with a couple rounds of front toss.  Next, we headed back to the field and threw just to keep our arms loose, and we finished each day by hitting some ground balls to one another.  Overall a very low stress workout, but it was effective in keeping us both in the flow of things.

The Ems lost 3 of 4 to the Canadians and took an overnight ride back to Eugene.  We headed out to Salem-Keizer for our next series which is a back and forth series.  We don't stay in SK because its only an hour to drive back and forth.  We got up to the ballpark plenty early and got to pick out lockers, I'm in the corner so that I have extra space to my left with the lockers not going right up to the wall.  We took bp and although we had done all our work the previous three days I felt like I couldn't find my bat path, I felt long and loopy.  After bp I headed inside and grabbed a roll of tape from our Athletic Trainer, Jeremy and taped a fat knob on the end of my bat.  By shortening up, I created better barrel awareness, and better bat speed.  It must have worked as I got two hits and cashed in two rbi in game one, however our team was a shell of itself after the long trip back from Vancouver and nothing really went right for us in a lopsided loss.

Game two was much better for everyone.  We jumped out to an early lead putting up a 5 spot in the first inning.  I singled home two runs, and "stole" home (thanks to Goose getting hung up long enough for me to get to the plate).  In the 3rd I hit a solo home run to make it 6-0, and then after a long night I came up in the 8th.  With a man on and a 3-2 count I managed to foul off four pitches. The fifth 3-2 pitch was up in the zone and I put a good swing on it.  I knew right away that I had, for the first time in my career hit two homers in one game. I had to suppress the little kid in me that wanted to put on the huge goofy "I did it" smile.  We finished up with a long ninth and escape with the win.  Tonight we head up there for the finale of our three game set, and then we have an off day tomorrow.

I'm sure you're all thinking this right now, tough life isn't it?

8 Crazy Nights

WARNING: This post is littered with pictures that don't necessarily go along with the actual post.  Don't be confused, there is no abstract, artsy meaning to any of them, I just figured I'd throw some pictures from home at you.
 

This is part of my office, with all my
new Victus bats lined up nicely.

Having knocked off the Vancouver Canadians in game one of our three game series we were feeling pretty good about ourselves considering we had won six straight.  We arrived at the ballpark early for defensive work with Jonesy (he travels to all the minor league clubs to work with infielders) and were ready to continue our quest to win every game the rest of the year.  When you've won six straight losing just doesn't seem real, it isn't tangible.  It's very easy to fall into the "we haven't played our best baseball, but we're winning" trap. It's a killer because for however long the team is caught in it, there is a passive sort of "it will happen" mentality.  We knew we weren't hitting the ball our best.  We knew our pitching and defense could be a little better.  But winning games can create a sense of entitlement and that's never a good thing.  I don't think we fell into it, but the middle game would not be so kind to us, as we lost it late snapping our streak. We just didn't have it that night.  When we hit balls hard they were right at guys. When we didn't, they made plays.

We finished the series up with a victory, as five Ems pitchers combined to shut down the Canadians offense, allowing just one run on six hits.  This game was also the first time I got to face my former teammate Marcus Stroman. Stro, as everyone calls him, was the Jays 1st round pick, and with good reason.  He's small, but he pitches in the mid to upper 90's with a slider that apparently appears out of mid air.  That's at least how it looked to me, as he sawed me off on a good slider down in the zone.  It appeared as if the ball came out of nowhere and just started breaking down and it toward my foot. 

A failed attempt at getting the "Ems Win" sign on the video board.
After every Emeralds win the logo flashes on the board until the
ballpark closes.

From the first base concourse fans can see Autzen Stadium,
the home of Oregon Ducks football.  Its also in view from
my spot on the field at second base.

I had officially had my first series without a hit.  0 for 10.  This is normally the beginning of the end for me, when I get into double digits without a hit I normally lose my mind.  "Why can't I hit, will I ever get another hit, why am I here, what am I doing wrong, am I doing anything right?"  My mind usually questions itself at about a thousand miles an hour, but this time it was different.  We had won two out of three, and I felt good about my swing, my at bats and my approach.  I really felt okay about it.  Not that I was satisfied walking out of that series hitting .185 but I knew I was going to be okay.

On the concourse is the Starting Line Up so fans keeping
score and can access to the lineup.  Murph dropped me to
the 4 hole for the Boise series. Guess it worked?

As if on cue the Boise Hawks (Cubs) rolled in to town for a five game series.  I decided (not really, it actually just happened) to get the "0fer" bug out of me.  I went 3 for 4 with an rbi bumping the ol average up to a respectable .258.  Spring, if you happen to read this part I know, batting average is Satan, but it's nice to get some hits after an 0 for 10 when you have 8 hard contacts for outs.  I bought in to the couple of adjustments our hitting coach Chris Prieto showed me, and I began using a new mental approach that Murph suggested.  "Just be boring, your going to be a guy who bores people to death by hitting a thousand line drives over the SS and 2B heads.  Just be boring!"  Well, I certainly was boring, knocking 3 line drives between the two middle infielders and having a good start to the series.

We were winning again, and as has become the tradition we let Genison Reyes one of our Dominican born pitchers man the Ipod station post game.  Reyes is known for his Latin flair and we all have a great time eating dinner, playing cards and occasionally dancing, in spite of the fact that the only word any of us have picked up in any of the songs he plays is "problema," it also happens to be the only word in that particular song.

I guess our home park is pretty nice?

In the next three games we've managed to start playing really good baseball.  We hit when we need to, we've thrown strikes and we've made plays.  I've really enjoyed the fact that much like my Seawolves teams at Stony Brook, we don't lose very often here.  It's a hell of a lot more fun winning every night than it is to lose ever, even just one game.  So as we head out to the ballpark for team pictures today at 2:30 p.m. we'll be preparing to put the finishing touches on what could be another 5 game sweep, and 6 game winning streak. I can only hope that this time the team can keep it going in Vancouver. 

Fast Turnarounds, Ghost Hotels and a Win Streak

First off I have to apologize for the amount of time between posts. This past five days has been pretty hectic.  My last post was from Las Vegas, and following that post me and Otto made the trip up to Spokane.  What a gorgeous view as our plane came into the small northwestern city, it reminded me a lot of camp but on a much larger scale.  More green space, more lakes, mountains rather than rolling hills.  It was nice to see green life below me considering Arizona is too hot for most places to even have grass, it has this weird alien sort of feeling, you can drive for miles and never see grass. 

We arrived in Spokane and took a taxi to the ballpark.  When we arrived we were told to call our ATC, Jeremy, but his phone wasn't working.  We stood on the side of the road outside Avista Stadium wondering what the hell we should do next.  Luckily one of the players who is rehabbing an injury was running outside the stadium.  He passed us and huffed out "if your the new guys its the third door on the right side over there" as he continued his run. I guess the navy Padres bags and the clueless looks were a giveaway, note to self, look like you have some semblance of a clue, even if you have none.  We walked up to the clubhouse and stepped into our new manager, Pat Murphy's office.  This guy is a legend on the college scene having coached Arizona State teams to Omaha every year, it seems since they started the College World Series.  Murph welcomed us to the team, had a nice little catching up conversation with Otto (he committed to play for Murph at ASU two years ago) and then explained how he wanted us to step in to leadership roles.  Having been wide awake since 5:30 a.m. I was almost delirious when he delivered the best news ever, "Tiss you'll be in there at second tonight, we're gonna bat you 3rd. Don't force it, just go in an relax."  I was half stunned and half expecting it so I managed to nod my head and reply with an "mhm."

The view out to CF.  This was during the cleanup prior to
game 4 of the series.  Storms forced us to cancel BP but we
got all the games in, thanks to a great grounds crew.

We left Murph's office and met Kyle, our clubhouse manager who got us set up with our grey road uniforms and our navy batting practice ones. He also told us we had 10 minutes until stretch.  I hurried into my uniform and headed to the field.  When I arrived I immediately fell in love with the stadium, it had that perfect old school Americana feel to it.  It's high outfield wall was covered in billboards, the press box sat on the roof, an add on not needed when it was built.  The backdrop was gorgeous with mountains all across the horizon.  We stretched, threw and before I knew it we were back in the clubhouse after winning an exciting game.  I got my first hit, made some plays at second and all was good in the world.  Games two and three were much the same.  We scored, Spokane answered.  We scored again late, held them and we won.  Three straight to start my career with the Emeralds off.  The week was spent meeting new teammates, becoming friends with guys I had previously played against, including Ronnie Richardson who played CF for UCF and their set up man Roman Madrid.  I met some people I had only ever heard about in college baseball blogs, Goose Kallunki being one of them.  It seemed like all through the college season there was no shortage of love for Goose on the baseball websites, and rightfully so, the kid can certainly hit.  I found out this was a pretty cool, loose group thanks in part to our haunted hotel, one in which Marcano, Gabby and some others all saw ghosts.  There was a midnight ghost hunt on Friday the 13th, but I was too exhausted to even consider spooking myself.  It was a great first three days, and an intro into the team I'll spend the rest of my summer with.

Getaway day in Spokane was a special one though.  We knocked out a whole lot of hits, scored a whole lot of runs and cruised to an 8-2 victory.  Why would that be a special game?  Well, leading off the 7th inning I quickly fell behind 1-2.  The pitcher beat me twice with inside fastballs. I worked the count full, and his 3-2 pitch was exactly what I expected, fastball in.  I turned on it and hit a line drive that just never seemed to come down.  It smacked off of the train car, turned sports bar in right field for my first career home run.  I tried to fight back the goofy smile but there was no concealing it.  I was higher than a kite as I rounded the bases, it was an incredible feeling.

The not so incredible feeling was the eight plus hour bus ride back to Eugene.  We watched two movies on the bus before everyone tried to fall asleep. I curled up on the floor under my seat and rolled up a couple of sweatshirts for a pillow and managed to get six very restless hours of sleep before we got home.  We headed back to the hotel and I got a couple more hours of sleep.  I met up with Gramma and Zidie in time to go for breakfast.  We spent the day running around, shopping eating and just hanging out before I had to go to the ballpark.  I arrived plenty early, mostly so I could meet my new bats.  They were incredible.  There is something so cool about getting new bats and being able to just bust them out right away for a game.

Needless to say we were plenty excited when Ronnie made
it back to the plate after his walk off bomb.  This was part
of the celebration.

We took on the Vancouver Canadians, or the Baby Jays as some of them call their team on Twitter.  It was an exciting game, very low scoring, very good pitching and defense.  There were three ejections in the game as their manager lead the charge to an early exit after getting tossed in the 8th.  Next was Scooter, Stephen Carmon our shortstop.  In the bottom of the 9th he got punched out on a bad strike three call and he made a seemingly harmless comment as he walked back to the dugout.  He got thrown out.  That lead Murph to go on the most impressive tirade against an umpire I'd ever seen.  It was awesome, he chased the guy around the home plate area to ensure he got every last piece of his mind. We were fired up, or so we thought.  The very next pitch, Ronnie crushed a ball to center and just like that it was all over. We tossed whatever we were holding in the dugout aside and ran out to home plate to meet him. The crowd was rocking as he rounded the bases and we went nuts, mobbing him as he crossed the plate! It was an insane moment, one that reminds you just how incredible baseball can be. 

It's been a special few days getting my feet under me with the Ems.  I'm going to make sure I don't got 5 days without writing, but given all the new routines, people and places I felt it was necessary to devote my time to things other than writing.  Now that I have some idea of what goes on daily I can get back to keeping everyone in the loop.