I picked a number...

Another day closer to breaking camp…Today was another day just like any other except for the fact that all the coordinators and coaches are starting to get antsy and when that happens they tend to take it out on the players. I don’t know if I speak for anyone else but I could feel it coming. As of late it seems like all the talk between players has been about being anxious to get out of Jupiter for the summer. I would definitely say that our play on the field has shown it. So today the coordinators put a little reality back into everyone’s mind by letting everyone know that teams aren’t set by any stretch of the imagination and anything can happen.

In today’s game I came in halfway through to DH. I ended up going 0-2 with a strikeout and a high pop up to the third baseman. I still feel good at the plate and I can’t wait to get back into the box tomorrow. I think we ended up getting beat 7-5, but no one really keeps track. It’s also kind of skewed because once a pitchers pitch count becomes too much in a single inning they yell out last batter and roll the inning over. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me simply because that’s not what happens during the year, you have to learn to get out of jams and that’s a huge part of baseball. Tomorrow we have our last “camp day”. Like I talked about in a past blog, these days are usually the ones where most guys are released. All we have tomorrow is batting practice and an intersquad game against the high A team. We should be done by about 1:00, which is a big difference from our usual 5:00 finish.

After our game our trainer was taking requests for numbers and getting sizes for everyone who is in our group. I had my choice of pretty much any number and I decided on…32. I also thought about 44, my number at Missouri, and 39, the number that I had last year in Greensboro when I hit two homeruns in my first two games. I figured I would go back to my roots and that definitely is #32.

Today I transferred clips of some of my swings that have been recorded during this spring training from our hitting coach’s computer. A couple years back our hitting coordinator downloaded a swing analysis program to my computer. I actually found out yesterday that the program is $2,000. When I got back to my room this evening I compared my swing now to my swing back in Jamestown. Things have changes quite a bit and definitely for the better. There are obviously still some things that I have to improve on but I’m definitely taking strides in the right direction.

Movie Update:
Even Money- This movie has one of the most star studded casts of any movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a story of three different people who all have gambling issues and how they all become intertwined in the end. I thought it was an alright movie. There were some points in the movie where I thought it became a little slow but other than that it was a good peek into the life of a gambling addict.
My rating: 6.5

American Idol Update:
Last night was the first night of the top 10 and judging by what the judges had to say Blue Springs’ own David Cook had the best performance. Everyone else was kind of average so it should be interesting to see who will get voted off tonight. At this point in the show everyone deserves to be there, it’s not like last year where Sanjaya stuck around and took up a spot.

Hopefully my blogs are giving everyone insight into what Spring Training is like and how hard it can be on some people. It is considered a job because we do get paid for it, but I mean come on…we’re playing a game and that’s definitely not a job and never will be in my mind.

*Having fun makes everything so much sweeter.