Over

So last Thursday I graduated. So much has happened since my last post. Most readers probably know I played about half a senior season after sliding into a third baseman's foot - broken and displaced sesamoid bone with two ruptured tendons. I can go on and complain and say what a good season I was having, but I've done so much of that with my mouth, I'm too lazy to type it.

As for right now, I've resumed playing, thanks to a carbon foot plate and some nice turf-toe taping. I feel good playing, but it's not 100% and I'm being very careful to not over-do it off the field. The fear of re-injury is very very strong, although when I'm playing, it's really shoved very much in the back of my mind.

Having graduated, I pretty much accept that Baseball is slowly being squeezed out of my life. Assuming I even continue to play in years to come, I'll definitely only get worse - I won't be practicing during the year, maybe a few summer ball practices. So I'm definitely at my peak, and accept that all the work I've put in, this is what has come out - for better or for worse. I'm definitely proud of what has come out; there are parts of my game that were once blaring weaknesses and with hard work and coaching have transformed into strengths. (Props to you, Jaeger throwing program.)

Obviously the next huge goal for me is to tryout at some Independent League tryout and see how far off I am, or how little I can make a fool of myself. And I know that even despite my success in perhaps the worst NCAA conference and NY amateur Baseball leagues, I shouldn't be expecting to compete at any professional level. But at what point in my Baseball journey was I ever not getting in way over my head? Having never played baseball, I signed up for a camp designed for the college-bound player. I mean, I wish I could see myself back in those days (somewhere I have a VHS of the evaluation, but it's all messed up and can only be watched in fast forward). I'm sure it'll help show how the work I put in paid off. And as to whether it was worth the GPA that wasn't close to hitting four bases - I never blame Baseball, that was simply me not putting effort into something I wasn't genuinely interested in.

Long story short, it's nice to look back at anything in life, be proud of what you did, and move on to the next chapter. Looking back, I'd probably put more effort into something like school - even if I don't enjoy it, the success one enjoys will be worth the hard work. So if I can say one thing, just do what you do with all you got, because that's the only way it's ever worth it.

Practice in the Present

OK, so two weeks from tomorrow is opening today. Granted, the chances of the field being playable are slim, so we’re likely three weeks away, but you never know. And as the season draws closer, I start breaking down my game and seeing if I’m ready to go. I’m not.

From the defensive perspective, I’m not blocking well. Granted, on a hard-wood gym floor, it’s difficult to really get in front of that baseball. Also, pitchers are all working on new grips and refining mechanics, which tends to lead to loss of control, and hence fifty-footers, which, as any catcher knows, it’s really tough to block a pitch that bounces ten feet in front of you.

I think my throwing has been pretty good, although that’s tough to gauge because being stuck in a gym inhibits me from using my throwing program and getting long toss in. Lately my elbow has been hurting and I need to make sure I keep my throwing at about 70% so as to not aggravate it further.

We finally got an indoor cage, which is a huge help. But we have one indoor cage, and while pitchers get to really work well off the mound and throw to batters, the batters get maybe 1-2 at bats a day, which leads to about 20 at bats left until the season starts. Thinking about it – it’s a lot – I got zero the past three years (and we know if we take out my first twenty at bats of every season where my batting average goes), but it’s tough to be satisfied - having real at bats is priceless before a season. I get just as many reps as the next guy, but I still feel like I’m being gypped.

So seeing this negative, like I’m not getting enough at bats – that’s completely positive! I’m actually getting at bats! And being honest with myself, I’m having good at bats, too. I’m focusing on timing and approach and really leaving mechanics aside. In two weeks from now, I could see myself really being ready to go.

It is important, in my opinion, not to over-think practice. It’s too late to think about what you could have done or even how much you need to do. It’s important to keep a very simple approach – do right now what you’re supposed to do, at 100% effort. Every swing, every throw, every repetition is done with a focus and specific purpose. I can relate this to life outside of baseball too. I’m someone who always regrets not going to class, not taking good notes. And when finals come, I spend time complaining how stupid I was, why didn’t I do a better job? But, at the end of the day, you need to look at right now. It’s finals, you’re behind, sit down, and get it done.

With this attitude, you spend less time thinking about things that are already over with. You are also maximizing the time you have left. Hopefully, I can keep this sort of attitude and go full swing into the season.

What Baseball Taught Me

OK, I definitely could have come up with a better title, but why beat around the bush? Everything about a blog is kind of cheesy, so no sense in hiding it. For those new readers who haven't read my first blog, Baseball was something that just sort of fell into my life, something I loved from the get-go and really tried my hardest to excel at it.

I was awful, but I didn't realize it. And I always say now: the better I get, the more I realize how much I suck (and this blog just became PG). I think it comes from trying to compare yourself to those at the next level, and there was just so much room to improve. Baseball made me appreciate professional athletes. These people have devoted so much time into their sport, they have become freaks of nature. And this applies to all sports. One a quick side note, I hate people who say, "Baseball is the best sport because it teaches sacrificing for a team." That is BS, every sport has passing and elements where players' role exist solely for teammates. Think of the offensive line. Anyway, it's incredible how effortlessly basketball players drain threes, how precise soccer players place the ball, and how many balls fly out of the park during a batting practice. Now, when I hear someone bashing a professional, "Oh, he's awful," I just can't stand it. I know, compared to the average professional he might be awful, but even he is so so good.

Related to that, I learned how in order to improve you simply have to work hard, be disciplined, and there are no two ways about it. There are very few shortcuts in life, and most of us took them on the way home from school in third grade. You aren't going to get stronger unless you put in your hours in the weight room. You can't improve your swing mechanics without taking a lot swings, specifically focusing on the adjustment you are trying to make. Simply put, you want it? Go get it. I wanted to be really good. I can't say I made it, but I sure came a long way. I never would be where I am without the amount of practice I put in. (For a list of people who helped me along the way, ask me another time, there are way too many on that list. Oh, and G-d.)

I'm starting to feel like everything I've learned is related. Next on my list (which comes in no particular order) is prioritizing. Baseball suddenly became a central part of my life. A group of friends I used to hang out with, I stopped hanging out with. I have to stress that is was not a conscious decision - I simply realized one day, wow, all of my friends are baseball players. When it came to choosing hanging out with friends or getting your workout and swings in, I chose the latter a huge majority of the time. I had to prioritize according to what I wanted. Even now, that Baseball is just not what it was, I think I'm better able to look at my plate and know what is important to me and what can wait.

Lastly (or at least the last thing I can think about), I learned that in life you need to control what you can control and nothing else. In Baseball, you can do everything right, hit the ball right on the barrel but right at the fielder (sorry for the cliche). You just have to get back to the bench and know you did the right thing. There are several factors in life you cannot control, namely, anybody else's actions. There is no sense getting frustrated about things you cannot change. You need to apply your effort to things that will practically make a difference.

Now that I am more focused on a career and other aspects of life, part of me thinks about the amounts of money and time I spent on baseball and to an extent I almost regret it. But I think it was a blessing and really glad it all happened. These qualities have already helped me so much in life outside of Baseball. Oh, what a great game.

I'm Back

OK, it's been a really long time since I've posted anything, and I'm kind of surprised I'm doing this again too. I am writing again because I want to maximize my lunch break, and if I have nothing to do, I'd get back to work. I get my measly thirty minutes and I'm going to use it!

The first thing I wanted to throw out there is that Baseball (I still capitalize religions) is not so much a part of me as it once was. It really took a backseat to what I thought (and think) is more important in life: school, jobs, and most important, girlfriend.

I haven't been as loyal to working out and hitting as I used to, but I have put in the time. Most of all, my optimistic side thinks that because I do care less about the outcome, I may be more likely to just relax, play my best and just see what happens. With practice finally starting tomorrow morning, it'll be really nice to get ready for the season, which begins on March 2nd. Full schedule can be seen here.

In terms of myself, I've lost a lot of weight since last season. I haven't weighed myself in a while, but I'm probably in the low 180s and looking nice and trim. I definitely lost muscle too, but I am quicker and faster. I did finally hit one out of Taft in a fall scrimmage, so hopefully that is a sign of things to come.

Anyway, I never did anticipate starting to write again, but now that team practices are starting up again, some good thoughts may pop into my head and we can keep this going. Also, this may have helped me get the internship I got because I did send a link to my blog as a writing sample. Maybe another way Baseball has helped teach me life lessons. And there you have it, tomorrow's post will be about what Baseball has taught me.

It's a Long Way to the Top

if you wanna rock and roll. As the middle of May brought about the end of school, it meant I had to go through one of the most annoying days of the year: Move-out Day.

I had all my clothes, wardrobes, baseball equipment, bed linen, school books, electronics, etc. It can get very overwhelming. Finally getting it done, I loaded the car and drove on home. That is only half the battle. Once you get home, things need to find their place and a lot of cleaning and moving around needs to get done. One of the only good things to come from this day, was perhaps finding some old things you kind of forgot about. That would happen to me.

I came across my evaluation paper from my first summer in baseball camp. Remember that I had zero experience playing baseball and began playing it with my brother in my junior year of high school. That summer, I signed up for camp. The camp was geared toward the college bound high school player, and I was ignorant enough to sign up.

The evaluation is broken into several parts: Running, Arm, Fielding, Hitting, and General. Now I will give the individual scores within each section. Prepare to be really shocked at what you see. Aside for running and velocity, everything is scored based on 1-5, 1 being needs improvement, 2 is below average, 3 is average skill, 4 is above average, and 5 is outstanding skill.

For Running, they held the 40 and 30 times. I an the 40 in 5.20 and the 30 in 4.17. I'm not too concerned about the speed back then, and I really don't know how much faster I got, but I did go 9-9 in stolen bases this past year, so I'd have to say I did gain somewhere along the way.

For Arm, this is where it shows how out of place and in over my head I was. There were four parts to Arm. Arm strength, velocity, accuracy, and mechanics. Accuracy and mechanics, I scored a 3-, and I was lucky for that. I was also lucky to receive a 2 when it came to arm strength. You know why? I was pumping them in there at...can you guess? 54 miles per hour! 54! You show me a junior in HS who's a catcher throwing 54 mph, try to project where he can end up. I think today (and this is based on other people's opinions), after a nice long toss session I can hit 80, which I still work on to get better. Who would have known that four years can bring a 26mph gain in velocity. Not only that. I bet you 54 was what I topped out at. I bet I averaged around 52.

Moving along, we get to fielding. I was a catcher who couldn't block for squat. I was also terrible at catching the ball. I have a VHS of my performance at camp, and I recall it not working after a couple years, but they had a college pitcher just throw to tape catchers receiving skill. I was awful. However, playing for a week straight, I was making lots of improvement is every facet of defense. So by the time evaluations came around, I was able to change enough to got completely embarrass myself. I got a 2+ in mechanics, throwing footwork, framing, blocking, and release to 3B. I got a 2 in release to 2B, and a 3 in bunts.

Ah, Hitting. I got an at bat a day I think because we only played a few innings each afternoon as a game. I think I struck out every day except the last I was determined to hit the damn ball. I hit an opposite field XBH, I can't remember if it was a double or triple. I'm pretty sure it was a triple, and I hit a double the next year at camp. Anyway, I got a 3- for lower body mechanics, backside, frontside containment, upper body mechanics, swing, swing arc, bunting, and multiple skills. I got a plan 3 for stance, stride, point of contact, extension, follow through, and power. I scored a 2+ for contact.

The General section was my pride and glory. I scored a 4 across the board - attitude, coachability, and work ethic.

I guess you can say that my General scores is what gave me the chance to improve into the player I am today. I'd love to get evaluated again, but most of all, I'm just taking time to appreciate my accomplishments and consider some perspective. I wouldn't say I'm at the top, but it has certainly been a long way.

Recap

Wow, it has certainly been a while. Definitely no reason why it had to be this long, I guess I got lazy, but now I have several topics to blog about so hopefully they will pop out like a Hasidic mother and her Hasidlings.

So to start this blog comeback, it is fitting I fill you all in on the remainder of the Yeshiva season. That is why the title is called: Recap.

To start, the year was a tremendous disappointment. For one thing, we finished the year 1-28. Now, we aren't a team expected or expecting to finish with a winning season. We need to keep it one game at a time and finish with seven, eight, and that's an extreme success. I think the team's failure can be credited to two things, which, when combined, led to a disaster: terrible weather allowing for one outdoor practice before the season, and having all the "winnable" games at the beginning of the season.

I'm sure you can already see where this is headed. A team like Yeshiva, where we are already suffering from terrible lack of experience, not getting our reps in on a field is huge. We were cooped up in a tiny gym, where Bengie Molina can go home to first in 2.5. The reason for being indoors can be credited to two really annoying snow storms. To add onto that, our only baseball exclusive facility in school, our outdoor batting cage, was knocked over during the second storm.

So there we were, a team who hadn't been able to take BP since the fall, beginning our season after seeing the outdoors just once since the leaves were brown. We were determined to come out strong and not be bothered by our poor circumstances. And we actually played good baseball. Five out of our first eight games were decided by three runs or less. Problem was, we were always on the losing side. Two of the teams we had faced during that time we had beaten last year.

We went on to the tougher teams and didn't fare well at all. Our hitting was non existent. At this point, we were playing too many games to practice in between (remember that school comes before baseball) and we still had no cage. No way to really work on the issues we had. What was really bad was that our pitching, for the most part, kept us in the games, and our fielding was also a big improvement since last year. I really think a cage could have helped us find our stroke.

By the year's end we squeezed a win against Baruch on senior day, which was definitely huge for the team. Going through a season winless, with games getting tougher and tougher can really be taxing. We went through it during my freshman year, and it really creates a bad energy in terms of the chemistry. It is understandable; nobody wants to lose.

For me personally, the year was also a big letdown. I came into the season ready to mash and I wanted to make a push for all conference, but I came nowhere close. For the beginning of the year, I started off a little slow, but I had productive at bats, driving in six runs in seven games. I started to square up the ball pretty well for the rest of the first half, but I was unlucky several times. I remember several times lining out to infielders and outfielders alike. It was frustrating, but I knew I was good as long as I was making hard contact.

After the Passover break, I came back very determined to hit. I had gotten to take a nice amount of BP and actually hit four over the wall in one session. I was ready to go. Not quite. The first game back I went 1-3, and actually broke up a no hitter, but it ended up being a one hitter for the guy, so I don't feel too bad. After that, I went on to experience the worst slump of my career. I hit 1-23, with just two walks and a stolen base. I wasn't striking out, which is something I can say lasted the entire season (16% K rate over the year and 17% over the slump period). With that info, I have to imagine I wasn't being very selective at the plate. I mean, being really selective. Like, if it's not two strikes, to really sit on something I like. I wasn't doing it and I learned my lesson.

At the time I wasn't too hooked on the pitch selection part. Maybe I was too stubborn to believe it, who knows. But I did just try to simplify my swing as much as possible. And I came out of my slump in style. After going 1-3 in the opening game of a DH, we found ourselves down 2-1 early. The rain was coming down hard and we figured we knew the game would be called after five innings. In the bottom of the third, their pitcher had trouble throwing strikes. After getting one quick out, he walked the next two on eight pitches. I came up, with a self-made red light, but once he throws any sort of strike, I'm hacking at the next good one. After one ball, and one strike, I was ready. He threw a fastball slightly above the waist and put my best swing on it, and sprinted around the bases as it sailed over the CF wall.

I really started hitting for the remainder of the season. Going into the last game of the year I was 9-20 (.450) with five doubles and a home run. That's what I expect to be doing! Nothing wrong with an .850 slugging percentage. The reason why I bring up the last game is because we were facing Pat Gale, CUNY's best pitcher. Scouts came to watch him. Needless to say, I got really geared up to hit, chased three straight pitches and went right back to the dugout. I got way too amped up and got myself out. That got me furious for the remainder of the day. I struck out once more against the relief but relaxed myself at the end and put together a good at bat.

So, at year's end, I finished .226, 7 walks, 8 doubles, 1 HR, 3 HBP and I was 9-9 in stolen bases. I With 93 at bats, that left me with a .301 OBP, and .341 SLG. Not what I'd like to be doing, but because of the obvious positives, I will go at it, and I am confident next year will be better.

Defensively, I thought I had a great season. As a catcher, that is the most important as well. I thought my receiving was good, my blocking was excellent, and the throws also were much better than years before. I don't think that I get a good shot at all bases attempted against me, but I'm a big critic of myself, so I need to make sure my throws are there anyway. And they were. Coaches assured me, I was executing my half of the play. But towards the end of the first half I was coming down with a dead arm. Nothing on it. My long toss distance dropped, my throws had no carry. Over the break I got on the Jaeger throwing program, designed to improve arm strength and durability. I was most excited about not losing velocity after consecutive days of throwing. It paid off tremendously. Teammates noticed the pop in my throws and the numbers show it as well.

Here is an estimation of the breakdown of numbers before and after break. I can't find the info, but I'm 90% it is very accurate. I am pretty sure I had thrown out 3 runners before the break, which came out to 5%. The math would indicate that 60 bases were stolen against. At years end, they had stolen 109, and I had thrown out 6 since then. Taking away the 60 from before the break (and 3 SB), I threw out 12% during the second half. That's over twice the amount in the first half. Lesson learned: Jaeger Throwing Program = Excellent. I'm really proud of that 12%, and I hope to see it get bigger next year.

That basically covers it. So, going into the summer, this is what I'm doing: For offense, just being really patient and sticking to it. I already see the results in the few games we played so far (lots of walks and more power hitting). Defensively, I plan on sticking to that long toss program, getting a stronger arm, and working on consistency and accuracy.

Stay tuned, more posts on the way.

Beat

OK, it's definitely time for an update, as we are seven games into our season. The games have been OK, although we haven't won. It's pretty frustrating because for the most part we are playing good baseball but it's not all coming together at any one game. I'm sure it'll come, just have to keep playing hard and be patient.

As usual, I'm off to a slow start - definitely not as bad as last year though. I'm having good at bats, and hitting the ball hard, just not falling. And still under 25 at bats, so a knock here and there makes the world of a difference in the batting average. Not that I'm concerned about my numbers, but it's always nice to tell someone you are batting a high number. When I tell someone I'm batting .208, it really doesn't give the whole picture.

We just came off a stretch with four games in three days. I caught every inning, and my body is really beat. Luckily we have two off days before our DH Sunday. I can start to imagine the physical toll on professional baseball players, although I know I could go out get loose and play today, it's still incredible they play through six months of this. But I was thinking this morning as I sorely hobbled to the bathroom - imagine after all this, I got trucked by a 215 pounder in a play at the plate. I would wake up in a world of hurt - and still have to play.

The only thing really bothering me is that on Thursday (yesterday) my arm had nothing in it. It wasn't even that it was hurting, it was just dead. I don't know what to do at this point. Thankfully we have off days, but it's not comforting knowing that my arm can't play a week of baseball without losing some pop. And if you know me, pop in my arm is not something I have extra to spare. Another time to appreciate pro players.

I'd like to end off with a quote from Joe Crede, although it will be paraphrased because I can't find the official quote: The only time a baseball player is pain free is the first day of Spring Training.