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Our first game didn’t go so well, so I won’t write much about it. The defense was pretty rusty to kick off the game, committing a few errors and mental mistakes, but the real culprit was the poor performance by the 1-4 hitters, who were 2-for-15 combined. This included me, who went 0-for-3 with only two real good swings on a baseball (one fouled straight back and one sky high flyball; I just barely missed both). I attribute it to first game jitters as well as just having an off day; I think that our team will be well above .500 this year and that I’ll achieve my personal goals as well.

On another note, the stress in my life over the past 3-4 months has directly led to me neglecting my physical fitness and nutrition routines. Unsurprisingly, I am softer than ever and overweight to boot. Fortunately for me, I picked up a baseball coaching client who is very dedicated and motivates me to get into good shape as well. I’m going to do my best to update this blog daily with my caloric intake and my physical activity for the day. I need to get on a lifting program, as I’ve largely neglected the gym, and I also need to start running more as the weather continues to get nicer and my time commitment to Roosevelt baseball wanes (the season ends in about a week).

I don’t believe in tracking scale weight, but I’m definitely carrying plenty of fat. I’d like to lose 2 pounds per week for the next 8 weeks, which would put me at the weight I wanted to be to start the season.

Tomorrow I’m going to hit the gym after baseball practice, lift, and then hit the grocery store to pick up some food in accordance with my weekly meal plan.

Besides, I need to look better for my wedding pictures!

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Saturday came and went without a scrimmage due to the poor weather (snow on Friday, bleh), but we had a small practice. It was good to get outside, hit some balls, and field a few grounders. I’m always up for practicing and getting more work in, and I’m genuinely surprised at the number of people who aren’t. Yes, I know I have a very flexible schedule since I’m self-employed, but on weekday nights and weekends, there’s little excuse not to get some work in.

Anyway, I hit a ball off Jacob that I thought for sure went out, but my teammates said it bounced off the warning track before going over the fence. Bah. Maybe with a dry ball and a warm day it would have sailed out; either way, I’m not too concerned, as the power is there. One thing I need to do is to develop a more consistent swing and approach at the plate. To that end, I hit three buckets’ worth of balls (about 200 total) today outside and at Arena Sports by myself, since I couldn’t get in touch with anyone who wanted to hit on a beautiful Sunday afternoon/evening. I am getting the four stages of the swing down pretty well, but I have a nagging suspicion that I’m introducing a bit of bat drag in my swing, something that’s always a concern when I hit too much off a tee or soft toss. Nothing can replace live pitching, since when my swing gets a bit long, facing live pitching always exposes the holes. I might swing by Strike-Zone tomorrow afternoon and hit 200 pitches out of the machine since there’s no HS practice due to spring break. I haven’t hit off a machine in a long time, especially the Iron Mike variety, which is as close to live pitching as you’re going to get out of a mechanical arm. Hopefully I’ll drag my video camera down there and finally get some tape. With any luck, there will be a HS kid to catch me a bit so I can tape that as well, though I’m less concerned with my throwing action.

Rob, my manager (also a faithful reader of this blog, Hi Rob!), is batting me third or fourth in the lineup, as I’ve said before. Most people would be thrilled, and I am, but I see this as a challenge within an opportunity. There are plenty of guys on the Mustangs who can hit, and I can easily remember two years back when I was struggling to make contact with BP fastballs in the NABA league. I spent full games on the bench and never really earned the trust of Zane on the Mariners, which drove me to work as hard as I did in the offseason to become the best hitter I could be. Personally, I feel like I have miles to go before I am content with my swing, and that’s the way I like it. I know that I have plenty of untapped power in my body built up from heavy lifting, and I strive to get better with every passing day.

Two years ago, I wrote in my personal blog that I wouldn’t stop working hard, and I’m happy to report that I’ve fulfilled that promise so far. That being said, complacency is the enemy of progress, and I am always pressing myself to improve. I really do believe that I have the talent at the plate to play at the Olympic level and beyond; I think I can be good enough to play independent league baseball if I work my ass off. I’ll never be great in the field, but I know I can hit well enough to get me in a lineup somewhere.

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February was a month of spectacular change for me. It seems like the concept of writing things down has held me accountable (writing here has helped, too) for my habits, for better or worse. I haven’t been tracking my weight, but the grabbiness of my flabbiness has all but disappeared, and I can get to the sixth and final belt hole on my 36″ pants holder-upper. I have changed my job to one that more fits my lifestyle, and that has improved my general well being also. My job change also has enabled me to volunteer with the local little league here downtown, something I have always wanted to continue doing.

The stats of my workouts this month are in line with the gains I had last month. I only missed two days of stretching, my last and first days at my old and new jobs. My task load increased 75% (24 last month to 42 this month), my percentage of a workout on any given day rose 11% to 69% and my time spent running rose 66% to nine hours forty minutes for the month. Here’s the chart:

I kept everything pretty balanced as far as hitting and pitching were concerned this month, with only a dash of fielding practice at the end. It’s only now getting to be warm enough to get quality practice in during the twilight hours. As the PSSBL gets rolling, I will most certainly mix much more defense in there, including PFP.

One week till tryouts!

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While things are heating up here at baseballdelusions, the weather is still friggin cold outside. Even in the Seattle area we saw snow multiple times below the 500 foot line, so I guess my Michigan skin has finally worn off… because I’m complaining about it just like a normal Seattleite. I still drive infinitely better than these crazies in the snow, though!

My workouts have seen a transition this last month. Something about writing it all down on a calendar every day has made me much more consistent. I have rid myself of about half of my beer-blubber, and even though I’m not tracking my body weight, I am several steps closer to pitching condition.

My stretching percentage went up 34 ticks to 68% and my rate of days worked out jumped from 23 to 55%. My total tasks rose from 8.5 to 24, a 282% increase. It’ll be impossible to see these sort of gains over and over again, but I feel like they are closer to becoming habits.

I have kept my diet pretty much static through this whole exercise, with the exception of limiting myself to just a few beers each night. No more big drinky for Jacob. Sigh… the sacrifices that one must endure for weight loss.

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Jacob wrote an excellent post on how he trains in the offseason, and it inspired me to write one of my own. Jacob and I went to the American Baseball Institute held at Rijo Athletics in Woodinville, WA, to get information on training with them and to see their pitchers throw. What I saw was an unbelievable talent level - pitchers throwing 92+ using Dr. Mike Marshall’s techniques with plus to plus-plus breaking balls by any measure of analysis. Unfortunately, due to both the cost and the time commitment, Jacob cannot participate in the program. I have opted not to continue practicing with them after a single session; this decision was made because the level of training their pitchers go through is not something I can sustain at my current fitness level. Their facility trains real MLB-level players, and the difficulty of training matches that philosophy.

For the next two months, I will be adjusting my diet to one that embraces both high-protein and low-calorie components to it.

My training has changed largely due to my experiences at ABI; in utilizing both the hybridized and the regular Marshall pitching mechanics, I find myself able to throw on a daily basis with no arm/shoulder pain. I experience soreness as I would when I lift weights, but not the type of ache where it would be physically damaging if I were to throw pitches at my maximum velocity. Marshall’s mechanics have enabled me to throw two quality breaking balls (pronation slider, gyroball) and when I am getting my arm up to driveline height early and translating my forward momentum well, my control is very good. Since this is all new to me, I am still working out the kinks, but I strongly believe in what Marshall teaches.

Working out for me is something that I do enjoy to do, but the results aren’t there because of my less than ideal diet. I have started eating a lot of skinless chicken (prepared in various ways), baked potatoes (not that great for you, but not terrible), and clean sources of protein and complex carbohydrates. On a daily basis, I will do the following:

• Utilize 8 lb. wrist weights to perform various arm/shoulder exercises (wrong foot drill, external rotation drill) as well as just getting loose
• Throw 30-50 pitches into a net, mainly fastballs
• Various bodyweight exercises (sit-ups, push-ups, dips) and static stretching
• Various SPRI band exercises (though not as extensive as Jacob!) involving my shoulders and arms

I need to get back into a better rhythm when it comes to compound lifts, and I am shooting for a 3 day/week program that focuses heavily on deadlifts, squats, and cable cross exercises. I will also work harder on running 2 miles every other day, as well as adding sprints and plyometrics into my workout regimen (which I hate).

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are baseball-oriented workouts with some combination of Jacob, Jensen, and Vinny at Arena Sports, Strike-Zone, or, preferably, outdoors. We typically focus on soft toss and 45-foot overhand batting practice, as well as throwing full bullpens for Jacob and I. These are my favorite days of the week! If I can find the time, I will try to add in another day of hitting machine BP at Strike-Zone just to work on my swing and to see more fastballs.

My supplements that I will be taking on a daily basis are ErgoLean’s AMP (fat loss), a standard multi-vitamin with BCAAs, a Optimum Nutrition protein shake, and possibly Creatine Monohydrate.

I am entering the 2008 PSSBL draft and my goal is to be drafted as a relief pitcher and an infielder in the Adams division (intermediate), playing alongside with my Rocky division Mariners. I haven’t yet decided if I want to exclude myself from the Olympic division, but it’s unlikely that I would be chosen to play at the top levels regardless.

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Pitchers and catchers are to report to their major league camps in a few weeks, but most of us amateur ballplayers don’t have nearly the time, resources or work ethic to train like professionals do. Going to the ABI with Kyle the other week really drove that point home. The ABI training was in a very professional manner, with a very professional price… both in time and money. Understanding this is easy; it takes absolutes of time, effort and resolve to change yourself into a MLB prospect. The whole thing made me want to be 21 and fresh off the bus to Seattle… but I’m neither. So my focus during the visit was to soak up as many drills and as much culture as I could during those few hours. It has definitely affected the way Kyle and I work out, and now that I’ve received my official release from the Red Sox (by my request) I have tryouts to train for.

I really like some of the pitching philosophies we heard about at ABI, though I think it’s disappointing that the ‘philosopher’ himself, Dr. Mike Marshall, carries such a negative stigma. But hey, I’ve been a black sheep myself my whole life and never doubted the validity of my thought and ideas, so we have some common ground. Aside from being completely single minded, compulsive and utterly confident, I think ‘Doc’ has some good things to add to the game. What Dr. Marshall has failed to embrace is that baseball is about results and relationships. This former Cy Young winner seems to be solely focused on the former with little regard to the latter. Some folks are scientists, others are diplomats. Very rarely are they both.

So unless an earth shattering blog-for-training agreement is reached between myself and ABI, I won’t be training there. I will however be using some of the tech I learned there in my preparation for this season. Don’t get me wrong I would love to train there, but the specific time of the workouts is impossible for me to accommodate without giving up my career. The cost was also too high monetarily for myself, but if the goal was a pro baseball contract it could seem reasonable. So I’ve had to come up with an adaptive solution, an extension of the realizations that I’ve been coming to on how to prepare for my season.

From throwing a curveball to learning how to run a successful business I’ve always been the kind of person who needs to be able visually see something in order to retain it. Therefore my low-tech approach to training is based on of some calendars printed off of my Imac. I’ve developed a little system of notation that becomes bigger as I progress through the months before tryouts and become more active. An ‘X’ through the date marks a day on which I stretched out really well, it’s the baseline for all workouts. An ‘O’ around it means nothing was done at all that day. Workout sets are usually denoted with two letters and a number, indicating the exercise and the intensity. For example, ‘BP1′ means ‘bullpen 1′ or 25-30 pitches to location after a thorough warm-up. December 2007 was a very light month for me workout wise, I was going to physical therapy for shoulder tendinitis and working a freakishly busy retail job 50 hours a week (with split weekends). I stretched only 9 of 31 days, and only averaged 1.5 workouts per week. Pretty tame.

Tame, yes… but a baseline nonetheless. This month has been much better, I’ll post it after we’re into February. Writing this all down has definitely provided feedback on how hard I actually work, and it has given me a incremental way to better myself.

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As I said in a previous post, my summer league stats were:

Hitting Stats:
.300/.380/.410 over 113 PA / 100 AB
30 H, 9 2b, 1 3b, 12 RBI, 14 R, 8 SB, 8 K, 9 BB, 4 HBP

Pitching stats:
2-2, 1 SV, 6.94 ERA
33.7 IP, 20 H, 32 BB, 18 K, 26 ER

My hitting goals this year are:

1. Hit over .300
2. Post an iso-slg over .130
3. Steal 10 bases
4. Work on selective aggression

I don’t know how much I’ll be used on the mound, but it’s likely to be as a setup man role or a closer role depending on how I do in the first few games. My arm feels great and I hope to pitch an inning or so tomorrow. I can safely say that I’m interested in pitching again after I struck out the side in my last appearance; nothing beats throwing from the mound.

My pitching goals will be:

1. Cut my walk rate down to 4.5 bb/9
2. Improve my strikeout rate to 6+ k/9
3. Develop my two-seam fastball
4. Develop my “breaking” pitch (two-seam gyroball)

Time to hit the sack. Game tomorrow at 2 PM!

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Hitting Stats:
.300/.380/.410 over 113 PA / 100 AB
30 H, 9 2b, 1 3b, 12 RBI, 14 R, 8 SB, 8 K, 9 BB, 4 HBP

Pitching stats:
2-2, 1 SV, 6.94 ERA
33.7 IP, 20 H, 32 BB, 18 K, 26 ER

Not too bad, I guess. I ended the season on an 0-for-15 slump with 3 walks and a HBP, so that explains the dramatic drop in batting average. That being said, hitting .300 with a little pop in the bat ended up being pretty good for me, and though I need to fix my swing after breaking it in the middle of the season, I’m confident I’ll get a home run next year if I stay here in Seattle (I might be moving back to Cleveland).

Pitching was another story, as my shoulder faded in and out of health and my command/control went with it. Nearly a walk per inning is inexcusable, especially when you don’t strike out enough batters, but in the middle of the season I had some of the best stuff all year as I rarely got hit hard (gave up few XBH and only one HR). Despite my fastball being barely average, the late life on it is something Jacob can attest to, and my change is a plus pitch at getting groundballs. My breaking ball started off terrible and was a real plus pitch for two outings, but faded back into obscurity. I barely threw the gyroball, never really getting the command on it like I wanted.

To sum it up, I didn’t work hard enough during the season to get to the level I wanted to. I consider that a failure, but I have all winter to work hard again with Jacob, Otto, and my students.

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After making about 10 errors at third base in the first inning which led to 8 runs, I ended up going 0-for-3 for the day with a walk and a HBP. I’m pressing too much at the plate, in the field, and I’m not 100% on the mound. I’ll be going to Cleveland for a wedding and some sorely needed time off for 13 days starting on Monday, which I think will help me a lot.

I digress. I came on to pitch in the sixth and allowed three runs over three innings, walked four, and struck out one. If you guessed that Jacob is the lone strikeout, you would be right! In fact, I threw him a 1-2 curveball that got him swinging.

The PSSBL Mariners is suffering from attrition - people aren’t showing up, the arms on the team are getting worn down (mine included), and the morale is low because of a few other reasons. It’ll be good to get away from organized baseball for two weeks. I’ve been training hard all year and the first 75% of the year was excellent - I saw major strides in hitting, fielding, and pitching. However, over 100 AB’s, 40 IP’s, and countless pitching/hitting lessons later in just a few months, I’m too burnt out on baseball to compete at 100%.

See you in a few weeks, readership.

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