Sunday, March 1, 2020

Calm Before the Baseball Storm

Tomorrow marks the beginning of high school baseball season in Illinois. With a new varsity coach in charge of our program there has been quite a bit of shuffling among the coaching responsibilities. I worked with the varsity team last season, specifically with the pitchers, and I was in charge of stats and social media. 
This year, <gulp>, I'm the head coach of the sophomore team. It's been five years since I was the head coach of a high school team and there is definitely a modicum of nervous energy building up.  I'm sure it'll be fine, but I have much more responsibility on my plate, which means less time for things like hobbies.
Two-fifths of the what I once thought would be the best Cubs rotation ever!
Speaking of hobbies, I sent a handful of items out the other day in an attempt to clear my "I owe cards to:" list. Yet, there's still a couple of names listed there. 
Shooter! Please ignore the cat hair above his throwing shoulder. 
One of them is the formidable and complicated Zippy Zappy. What do you send a guy who has basically stated he doesn't want cards?
A pair of lefties from 2020 Topps.
The other is Matt from the Once a Cub blog, which is temporarily in hibernation. I bought some cards for him at the card show last weekend, but I'm having some difficultly allowing them to leave the house. I'm used to importing Cubs cards, not exporting them!  Argh!
Bru, from Remember the Astrodome, will also be added to the list with ZZ and Matt. It's a good list of bloggers and I'll make good on the cards before too long. Thanks for the cards, Bru!
 I'll leave you with a pensive Kyle Schwarber, who is my Cubs fantasy baseball sleeper pick. 

Oh, thank goodness baseball is here again!

10 comments:

  1. Ooh, looking forward to whatever you sent me and sending TLC 15x that number of cards.

    Good luck with baseball responsibilities for your school and what not. The good thing about this hobby is that it's just a hobby and it's like a jacket, you just hang it up and then put it back on again when you want to. It'll be there waiting for you when you choose to return to it. And we'll still be here to read about whatever adventures you choose to share with us on here.

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    1. ^No

      Good luck with the season! Cool that you are a head coach. Even cooler that you have enough kids for a sophomore team! Is that basically the JV squad?

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    2. We have three teams at the high school level. Varsity, a sophomore team and a freshmen squad. I'm kind of like AAA for MLB... occasionally I may send a soph up to pitch if the varsity is low on arms and sometimes we'll take a freshman if they need a challenge. My day-to-day roster could be flux!

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  2. The Schwarber Turkey Red is fantastic. Best of luck with your sophomore squad this year!

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  3. Have a great season! The highest level of coaching I've done is leading the 6th graders to a victory over the staff almost 20 years ago.

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  4. Congrats on the head coach position! Does your school have distinct teams for all grade levels or is the sophomore team the equivalent of a JV squad? CT state rules do not permit us to begin pitchers and catchers until 3/14, so it is a later start, yet swiftly approaching nonetheless.

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    1. We have a freshman squad in addition to the sophomore team. We'll pull up the better freshmen when for tournaments and when we need a body.
      I was seeing some high school baseball highlights on Twitter yesterday. To think you don't start until the 14th, we started today, and there are other states where they're already playing games. Wow.

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  5. Good luck with the season. Remember to tell them Launch Angle is bunkum. Oh, and nice cards you showed off.

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  6. Challenging head coach position but wow, to be doing what you love! Teaching the game, being a mentor and role model to young people - they will be most fortunate to have your leadership! Have a great year!

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  7. Hey I have a purple chrome heritage vogelbach I am giving away if you want it. See padrographs for more details

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