Gearing up for the 2008 Season

It's hard to believe nine months have passed since the St. Mary's Saints closed out the 2007 season with that dramatic victory over EDS and hoisted the CSRA Private Middle School League championship trophy at Diamond Lakes.

But here we are ready to crank it up again for another season, and as fast as the time has flied since our championship season, the offseason couldn't go by quickly enough.

None of us who were part of that 2007 team will ever forget that season, but now is the time of year when we have to put that season in the past and get back to work. The 2008 Saints will be a much different ballclub. We won't have the same type of experienced leadership that we had with the 2007 team, as this year's Saints will be significantly younger and, most likely, not as deep as last year.

There is a lot of work to be done, and it all begins next week with tryouts, with our first on-the-field workout set for Tuesday, February 5. I am excited about the group of returning 8th graders who gained invaluable experience last year and finally learned what it was like to taste a championship at the middle school level.

But in order to have a chance to repeat in 2008, it will take an even more special effort and sense of commitment and dedication than last year's club.

Over the past few months, many have asked how the 2008 Saints will look and how we will compare to last year's championship team. Usually, my answer is that it's all up to the players. I truly believe we have enough talent to compete for another championship. But talent will only take us so far, as other teams in our league, including EDS and Augusta Christian, will probably look better than us talent-wise on paper.

Last year's team was one of the hardest working, dedicated bunches I've ever been associated with. But this year, we will have to work even harder.

Along with the retunring players, there promises to be a good group of newcomers with potential to help us, but these younger players will be making a big jump from little league to middle school ball. At times, you will be overmatched. But with hard work and total commitment to our program, I guarantee we will be a championship contender by the end of the season.

Every spot on our roster and every spot in the starting lineup is WIDE OPEN. Be ready to showcase your skills and prove you are willing to be a great teammate once tryouts begin, and don't let up until the last out of the season is in the books come April.

I hope every young man who comes out for our team this spring will be ready to pay the price. I hope our returning players realize they have to earn a spot on the roster and earn a job in the starting lineup, regardless of what they did for us in 2007. And I hope our young newcomers will be ready to be humbled as they jump to the bigger field and start facing much better competition for the first time in their lives.

If you all pay the price, starting on Tuesday, I promise that good things will happen.

Good luck and be prepared to work hard.

A Look to the Future

Thursday was a special day for the St. Mary's baseball program and even more special for six of our team's eighth graders.

Denis Douglas, Palmer Douglas, Chris Lenear, Alec Anderson, Bradley Miller and Carson Simmons were called up to play for the Aquinas High School JV team on Thursday for a game on the road against Jefferson County.

Palmer Douglas started for the Irish and played second base and third base, and was impressive in his high school debut, going 2-for-4.

Denis Douglas entered the game in the fifth inning in right field and went 1-for-2 with a double.

Bradley Miller entered the game in the fourth inning at catcher and went 1-for-3.

Chris Lenear also appeared in the game, playing left field for the final three innings.

Carson Simmons and Alec Anderson did not get in the game, but Aquinas JV coach Joe Galvin said he expects both to see action in Saturday's doubleheader at North Augusta.

As we work hard to build St. Mary's into one of the most respected middle school baseball programs in Augusta, one of our goals this season was to form a closer bond with Aquinas and become a true feeder program for the high school and to develop our young men into players who will be able to step right in at the high school level.

We have been working closely with the Aquinas program all season, and Thursday was a big step for St. Mary's baseball.

St. Mary's players will continue to play with the Aquinas JV in the Irish's remaining games, including Saturday's doubleheader at North Augusta.

For the chance to play for Aquinas, we selected players based on ability, but also on their commitment, attitude and work ethic. For Thursday's game, we called up only eighth graders out of respect for these players who have paid their dues.

Other St. Mary's players, including our seventh and sixth graders, will have a chance to move up to the Aquinas JV in future games. This should be another great incentive for our players to work hard and prove something every time they step on the field.

Congratulations to the St. Mary's players for making our program proud. And a special thanks to Aquinas head coach Mike Laney, JV coach Joe Galvin and Aquinas assistant coaches Tony Garren and Mike Paul for working with us this season and helping our program step up to the next level.

Team Victory

Maybe it was because the St. Mary's players were mad at the coach for being so hard on them, especially at practice on Wednesday.

Maybe it was because they realized they really do have something to prove, and that they weren't going to just show up at Riverside Park Thursday afternoon and have Westminster hand them a victory on a silver platter.

Whatever the reason, the St. Mary's Saints came to the ballpark with a sense of purpose, with a sense of pride and a sense of passion, and they got the job done in a 9-2 win over Westminster.

No, it wasn't perfect. We're still not swinging the bats as well as we should. We're still not doing all the little things or taking care of all the little details that helps build an average ballclub into a championship-caliber team.

But the good news is that every single player on our ballclub made a contrbution Thursday.

Everyone.


Tyler Williamson — Solid contact at the plate, solid defense at second

Denis Douglas — Two walks, two stolen bases, two scoreless innings of relief. Lots of twos; maybe that's why they call him "Double D"

Collin Oliver — Big two-RBI single in the sixth to blow the game open

Jeremiah Schaeffer — Two hits, two runs scored, and his usual outstanding defense at shortstop

Palmer Douglas — A hit, a walk, two runs, and a couple of nice plays at third

Ben Agee — As a pinch-hitter in the fifth, draws a two-out walk, and scores a big run with two outs to give St. Mary's a 5-2 lead

Chris Leonard — Keeps the fifth-inning rally alive with a pinch-hit, two-out walk to set up Oliver's key base hit in the inning

Chris Singletary — Steals a base as a pinch runner in the second, draws a pinch-hit walk in the sixth, and scores a big insurance run

Bradley Miller — Robbed of two base hits, but does a solid catching job behind the plate and stops a Westminster run on a bang-bang play at the plate in the sixth inning on a perfect relay throw by Jeremiah Schaeffer

Zach Pace — Makes a solid defensive play in right field in the sixth inning, throwing a strike on the relay throw to Schaeffer, who then nailed the baserunner at home plate with a perfect throw to Miller

Brendan Douglas — The sixth grader is the offensive catalyst, going 3-for-3 with two doubles and two runs

Chris Lenear — Goes 1-for-3 with one RBI and one run scored, and makes a stellar catch in right field in the seventh inning, then throws to nab the runner at first base for a game-ending double play

Carson Simmons — Draws a walk in the second, steals second, and scores the Saints' second run

Alec Anderson — Turns in a strong performance on the mound in his first start, allowing just three hits and two runs with six strikeouts in five innings

Sam Few — Our injured captain in the dugout and proving to be the ultimate 10th man on the field

Fifteen players. One total team effort.

Have we seen the best of the St. Mary's Saints this season? No, not even close.

But Thursday is what it's all about. Every single man on our ballclub did at least one thing to contribute to this victory.

On Wednesday, I gave our players a little dose of "tough love." I questioned whether our players truly believed in the concept of BIG TEAM LITTLE ME, or if it was merely nothing more than a catchy slogan.

After a 90-minute practice that clearly wasn't your best effort, I demanded you all pay the price at the end of the day Wednesday. And, as a result, I'm sure I wasn't the most popular guy around the ballclub Wednesday evening. But I hope you all realize we, as coaches, are only hard on you sometimes because we care and because we know we have yet to see the best of what you all have inside.

But Thursday afternoon, the St. Mary's Saints responded and showed that maybe they really do believe in BTLM after all.

There's still a long, long way to go. Again, let's not get too excited about one victory.

But without a doubt, this was a big step in the right direction.

And I owe you some Ring Pops on Monday.

Have a great weekend. You all earned it. We've got First Academy on Monday. See you then.

Something to Think About

In light of what was discussed at our meeting at the end of practice Thursday, I thought of an article I read several years ago.

The article was written by an avid baseball man named Raymond Angelo Belliotti, who is a philosophy professor at the the State University of New York-Fredonia. I was able to find it on the Internet and I thought it fit in perfectly with many of the things we have been stressing to our players over the past two months.

It especially ties in with many of the points we've been trying to make this season, especially over the past week since our loss to EDS. And I believe many of the points in this article can be something our players can take with them for the rest of this season and the rest of your baseball careers.

It may seem like a long article, but I think you will get a lot out of reading it. I hope you all will take time to read this great article and think about it a bit. And I'm looking forward to seeing which St. Mary's team shows up Thursday vs. Westminster.


NINE PRINCIPALS OF BASEBALL AND LIFE
by Raymond Angelo Belliotti

Baseball is about parents taking their children to local fields and teaching them the sport. Baseball is about the bonding of parents and children in the context of 150 years of history and the excitement of the infinite possibilities of summer. Baseball is about preseason practices, with everyone playing a variety of positions, no one keeping score, everyone energized, yelling, and engaged. Baseball is passing down an American legacy, reinforcing family love, teaching values and a way of life, sharing joy and triumph, sorrow and defeat. Baseball can illustrate and enhance the meaning in our lives. Baseball is only a distant cousin to organized games, all star tournaments, or names appearing in the local sports pages. My Sicilian parents taught me values about life that are applicable to playing baseball. My father made it clear: if I acted inappropriately on a baseball field, no umpire, no coach, no league official would have to intervene. He would run onto the field himself and physically drag me off. He was not in attendance to be embarrassed by a son who had not learned proper values. The most important rule: approach any task with great enthusiasm, a positive attitude, and with appreciation for the opportunity to participate. My 9 principles of baseball are more fundamentally 9 principles of living a rewarding life.


1. NO EXCUSES
Do not blame teammates, umpires, coaches, fans, or the position of the moon for your performance. Take responsibility for what happens on the field. Stand up, make no excuses, refuse the excuses that others might offer you. Excuses get in the way of learning because mistakes are denied. Be accountable. Remember you are not expected to be a perfect performer. No one is. Baseball is not an easy game to play.

2. PLAY WITH HONOR
Always hustle, run out every ground ball and pop up, encourage your teammates, especially after an error, bad pitch, or a strike out, carry yourself with pride and dignity. Do not in frustration throw equipment. Do not ridicule another team or an opposing player’s name, physical appearance, skill. Do not taunt. Do not distract an opposing player with low-level antics. Be positive with teammates. Never ridicule or criticize your teammates. They need your encouragement the most immediately after they have made a mistake. Show your teammates, your opponents, the entire world the values you hold dear by how you play.

3. BE RELENTLESS
Never Yield. Never Yield. Regardless of what the scoreboard says, you are never defeated unless you give up, unless you go belly up. No opponent can make you do this. Giving up is something you do. Regardless of what the scoreboard says, no opponent can extinguish the flame in your heart or crush the intensity of your will without your consent. Never surrender.

4. SLAY YOUR OWN DEMONS, THEN SLAY DRAGONS
Ignore those things outside your control: the judgments of umpires, the conduct and ability of other teams, the weather, your amount of playing time, the final score (this is a tough one). Do not show frustration or disappointment. Do not allow your opponents to gain joy from your inability to cope with self-pity. Do not throw equipment or whine in anger or slump your shoulders. Such behavior impresses no one. Maintain your poise. Learn, prepare, and focus on the next event. We cannot change the past. Instead, we should focus on the next action with determination, joy, and resolve.

5. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THOSE THINGS UNDER YOUR CONTROL
Your effort, your attitude, your commitment, and your approach to the game are under your control. Be enthusiastic, play with great effort, conduct yourself appropriately, meet this opportunity with great joy. Listen to your coaches. Be alert, play smartly, know the signs. You are always accountable. How you react to situations and circumstances reveals the person you are and the person you might become.

6. PLAY THE GAME ONE PITCH AT A TIME
Focus on the current pitch. If you are a pitcher, what are you throwing now and where? If you are a fielder, what are you going to do if the ball is hit to you? If you are a base-runner, what are you going to do on a fly ball, line drive, ground ball, to the right side, to the left side? If you are a batter, what are you trying to accomplish on this pitch? If you are on the bench, how are you helping your team be successful?

7. FOCUS ON BEHAVIOR, NOT OUTCOMES
The results of your performance are not fully under your control. The other team may be very good, or very bad. The bounces may go your way, or not. But your behavior and approach are under your control. At the end of the game, you, perhaps only, know whether you gave 100%, whether you did all you could to help your team. Those players who did are winners, those players who did not are losers, regardless of what the scoreboard says. Winners take care of the things within their control, enjoy their participation, and are justifiable proud of their effort. Losers make excuses, lose their poise readily, wallow in self-pity, and surrender at the slightest sign of adversity.

8. THE BEST PLAYERS ARE THE BEST LEARNERS
Players who are coach-able are always trying to learn more about being successful ballplayers and people. They listen and apply what their coaches and teachers suggest. Are you coach-able? If you are, you are a winner. If you are not, you are a loser, regardless of what the scoreboard says.

9. BE A JOYOUS WARRIOR!
Be enthusiastic, positive, give 100%, understand that relentless effort in the pursuit of excellence is its own reward. The joyous warrior exemplifies the slogan “No Retreat & No Surrender.” Win with humility, lose with dignity.

Searching for the Ultimate Answer

It's been a week since our last update and, to be honest, I still don't know where to begin when it comes to our 7-4 loss to EDS last Tuesday, March 13.

Before our practice Monday afternoon at Eisenhower, I was in the batting cage throwing BP to my son, Jake, when Carson Simmons' dad, Joel, came over and struck up a conversation about the state of our team.

Joel asked me if I had figured out the reasons for our loss to EDS. I rattled off several thoughts, but I honestly couldn't give a definitive answer, even though I've spent a whole lot of time over the past week analyzing the game and thinking about the things we could have done differently.

If this were any other year and any other team, losing one game early in the season wouldn't have hurt so much. And it certainly wouldn't have been something to stew about for a whole week.

But, once again, this 2007 St. Mary's team isn't an ordinary bunch. The potential is there for something very special with this team. Something extraordinary.

For whatever the reason, though, extraordinary didn't show up to play EDS last Tuesday afternoon.

Maybe we all were too cocky. Maybe we thought we would just show up and go through the motions and win that game on talent alone.

As a team, we've talked over and over again about not being overconfident, about not taking anything for granted, especially after our mini-collapse for three innings against Tutt.

But to anyone who's asked the question "What Happened?" with the EDS game, I've told them all the same thing. From the moment the players started arriving at the ballpark for our pregame last Tuesday, I knew it in my heart. We were flat. We did not show up at the field with a sense of urgency. It was crystal clear once we took our pregame infield. We were sloppy and simply did not look like we were ready to play an important ballgame.

I had a sick feeling in my gut that we were going to lose that game. Unfortunately, my instincts were correct.

From the first pitch, EDS outplayed us. No, they don't come close to matching up with us talent-wise. But talent alone doesn't win ballgames. Tuesday was proof of that.

We got solid pitching from Palmer Douglas, Alec Anderson and Denis Douglas, but made a few costly errors and had a few mental breakdowns defensively that killed us. We swung the bats well, at times, and finished with nine hits, but couldn't get the big hits in key situations. We missed several signs in key situations and made several mental mistakes on the basepaths.

On the flipside, any time EDS needed a big pitch or a big hit in a key spot, or needed a defensive play to get out of inning, they got the job done. On this day, their heart and passion beat up on our talent.

The good news is we still have a lot of baseball left to play. If we had to lose a game this year, Game 3 of the season wasn't a bad time to do it. It wasn't a bad time to get it out of the way.

But when you're as good as we are, we shouldn't accept any loss. I hope we all have learned from this setback, and it seems like our players all are committed to using the mistakes as a tool for growth. In practice over the past week, we've been able to focus in on some of the mistakes we made and make the necessary adjustments.

We still have a lot of work to do, but already, I am confident we are a better, stronger ballclub as the result of this setback.

At the start of our season, our team set five goals for ourselves. One of those goals now is unattainable as the result of the EDS loss. But the ultimate goal is still well within our reach, and I feel better than ever that our players have resolved themselves to making that final goal a reality.

Again, there is still much work to be done. And, again, there is good news. It looks like every player on our ballclub finally understands that nothing is going to be handed to us. I believe our club will come away from this setback better than ever. I truly believe the BIG TEAM LITTLE ME mentality is back.

Now, it's my job to make sure what happened Tuesday doesn't happen again.

And it's up to our players to prove BIG TEAM LITTLE ME is more than just a cute little slogan on a T-shirt.

Only then will the 2007 St. Mary's Saints find the ultimate answer we are searching for.

Saints Update – March 12

There's a popular expression in sports – "A team is only as good as its last game."

By this time tomorrow, we will know just how good the 2007 edition of St. Mary's baseball really is.

You can throw out our 2-0 start to the season – our 11-0 win over Augusta Christian and our 20-9 win over Tutt Middle School last week. And you can definitely throw out our 22-0 win over EDS in our preseason exhibition game two weeks ago.

Tuesday's game vs. EDS will literally be a whole new ballgame. And come Tuesday evening, we will truly have an accurate gauge on just how far this St. Mary's team will go in 2007.

Our players and coaching staff all know that the EDS team we saw two weeks ago is not the team we will see Tuesday. This is a quality ballclub, with lots of talent, led by Henry Rowland and Will Few, and they are a well-coached club led by Jacque Hawk.

And we are also a different team than the ones that played EDS in the preseason. The loss of captain and staff ace Sam Few again is a big blow for our ballclub.

But by the end of our practice Monday at Aquinas, for the first time all season, there was a sense of urgency with our players that we hadn't seen until now. For the first time since we began in January, there was a tremendous sense of pride surrounding this ballclub and a sense that our 14 remaining active players had truly bought into the concept of BIG TEAM LITTLE ME.

We saw at Aquinas Monday evening 14 players working as hard as they have all year long, hungrier than ever and ready step up to and take charge of their own fate.

By this time Tuesday, we all will know just how special the 2007 edition of St. Mary's Baseball really is.

Are we ready to MAKE A STATEMENT? We'll find out tomorrow.

Saints Update – March 11

After two big wins to open the season and a few days off late last week, St. Mary's got back to work Saturday morning to get ready for two more big games this week vs. archrival EDS and First Academy.

But near the end of practice Saturday, we got another scare as another of our key players went down with a freak injury.

Less than a week after we lost captain Sam Few to season-ending knee surgery, Carson Simmons was involved in a collision while playing first base during "12 Outs" – a drill that simulated game situations and that requires a defensive team to record 12 consecutive outs without an error.

Simmons was hit in the mouth in a collision at first base and suffered a nasty gash to his upper lip. He ended up going to his orthodontist and then to an oral surgeon Saturday afternoon, and needed 10 stitches (10 to the inside of his upper lip and two to the outside of his upper lip). But the Saints pitcher/outfielder/first baseman said Sunday he will be ready to go for practice Monday and for our game Tuesday.

The thought of losing another key player made for some uneasy moments this weekend, so hearing that Simmons would be OK was great news.

Speaking of great news, Sam Few appeared to be feeling much better Sunday as he continues his recovery from knee surgery Thursday, Over the weekend, many of our players stopped by Sam's house to visit and hang out with our captain, and the visits definitely seemed to have lifted his spirits. Sam and his family send their regards and appreciation to everyone who has stopped by to spend some time with Sam at their home.

Sam said Sunday he hopes to return to school on Tuesday and is planning on being on the sidelines with us Tuesday when we take on EDS.

Check out the St. Mary's Baseball photo galleries for photos of several players at Sam's home over the weekend, and thanks to all the players who stopped by the Fews. The friendship and camaraderie is a testament to how special a group we have with the 2007 St. Mary's Baseball team.