What a weekend!

I couldn't really have asked for a better weekend. I'll start out with Friday since I didn't really blog Friday night.

I had another encouraging day of practice in regards to hitting. I faced some more live pitching, had a few hits, and hit a homerun off of a former big leaguer. I feel pretty good right now at the plate, I need to keep this same frame of mind as Spring Training and the season progresses. I think I've also found a little cue with my swing/stance that lets me know how my swing is at that point in time. Here's what I've noticed...whenever I get in a hot streak I'm able to hit the ball with authority to all fields. This is where my theory comes in. When I'm doing well and I see a pitch that is off the plate inside I see it a long time and I turn my right shoulder in, whenever I'm struggling and I see an inside pitch off the plate I don't turn my shoulder and I scoot my feet back away from the plate. What this tells me is that I'm not looking to go to left field and I'm not keeping my shoulder in, everything is flying out towards the right side. Being able to tell what you do wrong from pitch to pitch is what seperates the good from the great. I think I know my swing better than anyone else (my dad probably knows it just as well) so the more that I'm able to correct myself and not have to lean on a hitting coach to help me the better off I think I'll be.

Friday night I went over to Brett's house and we had some pizza and watched a movie. They had rented Gone Baby Gone, definitely a movie that I recommend. It has Morgan Freeman and Casey Affleck and is about a couple cases of missing children within a city. It's definitely a thinker, it kept me guessing and the end definitely threw me for a loop but in my opinion that makes for a great movie. Obviously I recommend this movie. I ended up staying the night over at Brett's apartment because it was closer to the car rental place and we figured it would be a lot easier for Lindsey and would save her a trip over to the hotel.

I woke up early Saturday morning and Lindsey insisted on making me a breakfast burrito so I obliged and I'm glad I did because it was really good. Anyways, Lindsey took me over to Enterprise at about 9:00. I have the best dad in the world by the way, he agreed to foot the bill for the car. After a little paperwork I was on the road in my Nissan Sentra on the way to DeLand, Florida. Missouri's game was scheduled to start at 1:00 and I got into DeLand at about 12:15. So...I drove around the city for awhile to waste some time (I was actually lost). I got to the stadium around 12:50 and sat around until 1:30 for the start of the game because of a little rain delay. It was awesome to see some familiar faces and some good baseball. Saturday's game was against Michigan State and it was one of the more sloppy games I've seen. For example, in the first inning Missouri jumped out to a 4-0 lead with no hits. Michigan State kept inching closer only to see Missouri inch further away. Missouri ended up winning 14-9 after about a 4 hour marathon.

I met up with the team back at the hotel and talked to a few of the guys for awhile, 15 minutes later Dan and I were off to Chili's to get some dinner. We sat at Chili's for about an hour catching eachother up on some news and what had been going on in eachother's lives. After dinner we went back to the hotel and sat in his room and watched the Memphis vs. Tennessee game with a few other guys from the team. Jacob and I talked about some wedding stuff...which is always fun. He doesn't seem to know too much about what's going on with their planning though. I say I don't want to be involved but I think whene everything gets going I'm going to be just as involved as anyone. The basketball game lived up to all the hype that the media had put on the game. Watching the game got me pretty excited for March Madness. I lucked out last night and ended up sleeping in a bed, I was more than willing to sleep on the floor. Luke ended up staying over at his dad's house, leaving me with Coach Vitello as a roommate.

This morning I got up with the team and had breakfast down in the lobby of their hotel. Their breakfast is right up there in quality with the Fairfield Inn's breakfast. They all left for a team meal at around noon so I went on a wild goose chase to find a mall. The lady at the front desk of the hotel gave me terrible directions. Needless to say I drove around for an hour and a half and never found anything. I did end up running into a Ci-Ci's which was pretty nice, and by the time that I was done eating it was about gametime.

Today's opponent for Missouri was the host team of the tournament, Stetson. Kyle Gibson took the hill for the Tigers and he looked pretty impressive. He got into a jam one inning where Stetson loaded the bases with no outs. Kyle went ahead and struck out the next 3 batters with ease. The offense, in my opinion, looked a lot better today. They came up with timely hits and my boy JP (Jacob Priday) hit his first bomb of the season. I left the game in the 7th inning so that I could get back at a reasonable time. When I left Missouri was on top 9-2, they ended up winning 9-5. This team looks like they have all the tools to be a contender not only for the Big 12 title but dare I say...the National Championship?!?! I'm really excited to see what the season has in store. Next weekend will be a big early season test as they head out to San Diego where they will play San Diego, San Diego State, California, and Cal-Poly.

I sat behind the plate for both games and from that angle it looks like hitting is so easy. Sitting back there also gave me the opportunity to talk to some of the scouts, pitchers, and parents. I met Luke's dad for the first time, and it was definitely a treat. He lives in Orlando and travels the country as a motivational speaker. He also has been trying to make it on the Senior PGA Tour. He said that he's been to qualifying school a couple times and has missed becoming a pro by a couple shots each time. He also told me how he was a speaker for the Chicago Bears back when Mike Ditka was the coach and Walter Payton was the running back. He even has a 1985 Super Bowl ring. It was a treat meeting him and talking to Crow, Rick, Ian Berger, and Nick Tepesch.

The drive back to Jupiter seemed to go by pretty quick. I talked to Drew for about an hour and a half, Jordan for a half hour, and my mom for about 15 minutes. When I got back to the hotel I had a package waiting for me at the front desk, my mom had sent me some drawing utensils and my favorite...Reese's eggs!

So now I'm here blogging. This weekend was amazing, I definitely needed it. I now feel refreshed and am even more ready to get the season underway. I feel like I want to make it to the big leagues not only for myself and family but also for Missouri. They've been so good to me, I just feel like I need to repay them in some form and making it to big leagues I think would do it. I see how excited everyone is for Ian, he gives the program even more credibility and prestige. I should get to see a couple more Missouri games this year on Slingbox and hopefully a few games on ESPN when they're in Omaha.

*If you have any doubts about accomplishing the goal that is ahead of you then there is no point in even setting out on the adventure.