Practice #20--Last call

It seems like just the other day that we were all standing out in center field at West Raleigh at the season's first practice. We had a few questions: who was that really loud guy people kept calling Coach Mike, did that guy Coach Tom truly have every single piece of sports equipment known to mankind, and where the heck you were supposed to purchase sliders for a five-year-old.

As it turns out, I'm not sure we ever actually got the answers to any of those questions, although it was interesting to see that Coach Mike eventually went into the Secret Service, judging by his covert use of the earpiece at the last game. There is no truth to the rumor that his leg brace can actually be assembled into a high-powered sniper rifle.

Tuesday night marked the final practice--barring some weird rain event--of the fall season. It was an occasion to note how far we've come over the past two months. I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous about some of you on that first night. Several of you had on State shirts, which tends to make those of us from Chapel Hill a little jittery. Really, the only ones I weren't worried about were the ones who attended Apex High, since that school only turns out well-adjusted, positive, contributing members of society. But it's remarkable what a cohesive group the fall 2010 Mudcats turned out to be, from the parents to the kids to the coaches. There's not likely to be much time to be sentimental about that over the next five or (hopefully) six games, because game time is better spent wondering whether it is just unlucky or a true vendetta that the umpire and his seeing eye dog just missed yet another call at second base.

Coach Andrew began the final practice of fall 2010 with one of the team's newest hobbies: groundskeeping. It could be that they developed this love for dirt-smoothing by watching Coach Mike's passion for the water hose and internalizing the fact that doing something you love will always make you happy. Whatever the reason, they seemed delighted to be charged with the duty of gathering a bucket full of rocks before practice could begin. And, let it be said that the entire two hours probably could've been spent gathering rocks.

Instead, the first part of practice was divided into...say it together...stations. One group went to the outfield, where Coach Tom set up a mini-hitting amusement park. It was about as close as you can get to the Hitting Wonderland inside the city limits of Raleigh.

The outfield station enabled Coach Rob to show off his forehand. How high was he hitting them? At one point even Coach Andrew paused and said, "Whoa, that one is up there." Gum was on the line as the Mudcats tried to snag tennis balls. It took five straight catches to earn one piece, or ten straight catches to earn two.

In the infield, players continued to focus on hustling to the ball and getting set up to receive it in the triangle, rather than meandering to the ball and meeting it as it arrives or even fielding it off to the side. Gum was awarded for players who made accurate throws to the catcher.

The practice concluded with a four-part scrimmage, as players hit three balls fair and ran out the third hit. Remember way back in August when practice was scheduled until 7 p.m. but actually ran to at least 8 because it was still light outside? Those days are over, as dusk was falling when practice ended a good five minutes before 7:00.

The remaining events on the Mudcat calendar are all games, starting with Wednesday's 5:30 contest (4:30 pregame) against the Thunder.