Wednesday, April 30, 2014

A Very Uncomfortable Flight

Good rainy morning. Yes, it is raining in a way that I am confident that someone in the northeast is building an ark and will not let me on board. It's like the skies have opened up and the flood waters are pouring onto our heads.



With the rain, there is one happy guy who is thrilled that two games have been postponed. With an 8-game losing streak, the coaches want to play to regain the team's momentum. However, with the last week of classes and voluminous amounts of work for the college students, most of the guys are happy to be at their desks completing the final projects and papers that are due this week. Tomorrow, the team leaves for Nebraska. On the past Monday morning, the team arrived back on campus from Minnesota at 3:30 am.



With a need to work on his arm, the kid threw his weighted balls at 3:30 am against the pizza shop, then went to bed at 4 am to get up for his 9 am class where he had to give a presentation or speech...something like that. Fortunately, the professor saw the physical condition that he was in and postponed his presentation for when he was awake. With that said, he was in class after only a few hours of sleep thereby garnering the respect from the class and professor....(and his momma).



Although.......

LW was given the opportunity to come back to the team. All he had to do was go to 5 5 am lifts last week. He did not make it which tells a person volumes. In a way, this is a tragedy, he had an abundance of talent, but he did not give himself permission to succeed. Rather, he spent time drinking and staying up late and missed practices and lifts. Therefore, the new regime gave it to him and cut him from the team. He could not believe it because the old coaches let it slide because the kid had talent. On the other hand, the new guys were not going to tolerate it and let him go, much to his dismay. Do I feel bad about it? Sure. But he made these decisions while the other guys stayed away from partying (for the most part) and made it to practices. Should the standards be upheld for every player or just a few? Hmmm. I will let you answer that question.



I got an early morning call from someone who also called at midnight. He is not sleeping this week and is a bit manic. His voice was the last I heard last night and the first one that I heard this morning. "Mom, two of the guys from the House of Mold did not make it to morning lift. They got in from the bars at 3 am when Dog got in from the library. When Dog knocked on their doors this morning to get to lifts, they did not get out of bed."


Ok, so let's see. Dog is in the library until 3 am. The other two...Gopher and California were drinking until 3 am....Dog made it. Now we will see how consistent these coaches are with the rules. Will they penalize these two young men or ignore their behaviors?



With this said, there is more drama on this team than I ever thought there would be. When a pitcher has to find out that he is pitching the next day by listening to the Czar's radio show, then there is a real communication problem. My kid does not feel comfortable asking because he would be told: "You should always be prepared to play." Ok, but what about the breathing part, Coach? Don't I need to practice before I hit the mound?



'Nuff said. As they leave from the Cornhusker state, I can only hope that the assigned seats are different from the ones on Sunday night. It seems that the Delta flight put the players and coaches in alphabetical order. Guess who sat in the middle with his long legs? Guess who was on his right and left? Give up? On his right was the pitching coach, known as Psycho....on the left was the head coach known as the Czar......Then the plane was loaded and on the runway for an extra hours while storms passed. Who sat in the middle wishing that his seat had been on the wing?


That's right....the big leftie. He has some funny stories about this trip. I can only imagine what the guys behind him were saying....'cause I would have been howling if I had witnessed this flight.

Time to work....enjoy the day!

Peace!

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