Practice #1: Getting started

The spring 2012 Mudcats season began Sunday afternoon with a team meeting at the most important place at the West Raleigh baseball fields--the concession stand. Coach Sean ran the meeting, which included the always enjoyable team vote on uniform colors. Last spring's Mudcats wore black pants and black jerseys, which led to the nickname of All Blacks and a unique team ability to do the haka before games. Some players and coaches were more talented (ahem, Coach Tom) than others.

This year, however, the colors were again up for debate. Coach Mike's suggestion to use red pants, shirts and socks were quickly vetoed by the West Raleigh Fire Department, who were afraid they might confuse the coaches with a fire truck. Gabe suggested white pants, and Coach Mike generously offered to do everyone's laundry if white pants won the vote, but in a vote only slightly more rigged than most Chicago mayoral elections, black pants emerged victorious. Coach Sean explained some of the details of the optional West Raleigh raffle fundraising, plus announced plans for a team slush fund to cover Coach Sean's beach vacation unexpected expenses. For the rest of the details on the team meeting, see Coach Tom, who always makes it a point to arrive 10 minutes early.

After the meeting, the Mudcats adjourned to the batting cage, where they hit in three groups: tee, soft toss and live pitching. Hopefully, everyone noticed that Coach Sean went straight into the live cage and needed zero warmup tosses. As Coach Mike put it, "That's what happens when you are a finely tuned athlete." The rest of the coaches, meanwhile, needed a minimum of 15 minutes to get loose.

After hitting, the Mudcats moved to the practice field. After a quick lap around the field and throwing instruction from Coach Sean, a relay race was held. Due to extremely poor coaching from Coach Adam, his team lost both races. On the bright side, Coach Adam's team was able to do five push-ups after each loss and now is ripped.

Relays were followed by stations. This included Coach Sean's observation, "It's a lot warmer on the field than in the cages." Coach Mike's response was, "That's because now we are in the sun and before we were in the shade." Coach Mike is a scientist.

 Players were split into Red, Black and White groups for stations and rotated among outfield (first step always back in the outfield, opening the hips and sprinting back to the ball) and infield (making good throws, fielding the ball with good form out in front).

Coach Sean ended practice with some game situation work, partially to allow the players to get used to different game scenarios and also to allow him to show off his incredible hitting power. His attempts to crush the ball over the heads of the outfielders were thwarted by Benjamin and Asher, who each made nice catches in the outfield. Other notable plays included a heads-up cover of third by Charley from his shortstop position and an alert backup of first base by Brady that saved at least one extra base.

Practice concluded with a quick team photo, which was requested by Coach Tom so he can attempt to call everyone by their correct names--or something close to their correct names--at the next practice. The most formidable challenge for this goal is likely to come from Channing, who informed the coaches that he wants his nickname to be "Chandler." This may or may not be because one of the coaches actually called him Chandler at one point. Fortunately for Channing/Chandler, Coach Sean heard this request as wanting to be called "Hammer," which has a chance to stick.

There will be a test on names on Wednesday. This test is only applicable to coaches.

The next practice is on Wednesday night at West Raleigh, which will be followed by Friday's team event at the ballet TBA.