6 Things:
1. What does OP stand for?
OP stands for "Own-Program." I heard it for the first time probably when I was playing baseball at George Washington and one of our best pitchers, Lutz, would just do his own thing and get away with it. When I was playing for Tex Town Tigers in 2008, my manager and teammates realized that the "OP" was very positive, since my own program consisted of 2-3 times the amount of training/practice/work then what the others did, so the team practice itself did not help me since I had already done above and beyond leading up to that practice. Last winter in Perth, my pitching coach used OP as a negative connotation but I embraced it, especially when my Dutch buddy Lars came down from Holland to practice with me. Now, as I complete my personal Spring Training, or OP, I have been getting ready for the season since about Feb. 1, all on my own and with the assistance of my personal winter catcher, Pete Schneider.
2. The difficulty of throwing during the off-season in Detroit
When it comes to baseball, throughout the history of the game, there have been some very discernable facts. Baseball is a proven warm-weather sport, at its best during the summer days and nights and at its worst when muscles are tight from the cold and snow is falling enough to cover up the field. Simply stated, baseball is practically unplayable in Michigan, or anywhere up north in the U.S. or Europe during the winter months of freezing temperatures, short days and long nights. Players in the islands, down south from Florida to Texas to California can practice and play outside all year around, and that's why so may professional players come from these regions. The lovely Detroit winter isn't too helpful in producing professional baseball players, and therefore making things even more difficult to find throwing partners/places to practice my pitching or ways to incorporate long-toss and arm strengthening when there is over 2 feet of snow outside. Luckily, I met a cool dude at my law school who just loves baseball and was happy to catch for me this winter (we started the first week of February, going every other day for the first month)... however, he had work at 10AM and law school classes afterwards all day, so we could only meet at 8 AM. Every morning, I'm getting up at 645 AM, pounding a coffee and a granola bar, wading across the frozen tundra of Woodward Ave at 8 AM to go work up a sweat indoors before my body or mind is even woken up. It was not pretty, but it had to be done. We kept waiting for the weather to turn, but still in the first week of April we were throwing indoors and I only made it outside a good 4-5 times all winter, early Spring because the weather was just too cold, too snowy, too rainy... too armegeddon. It takes dedication to play this game. It takes sacrifice to play it professionally. It takes both and a lot more to continue doing it while living during the winter/off-season in Detroit, MI. And people wonder why I love Australia in the winter...
3. Opening day - fantasy baseball
Opening day was last week, and my catcher Pete couldn't throw with me because he had a fantasy baseball draft. I'm not hating on fantasy baseball, heck, I used to play it religiously - 8 teams at once when I was in high school and college. My father, original JP, initially got me into it. I made him take Mark Grace when in like the 4th round in '92, Grace had his worst year in his stellar - but non-power hitting career. I never forgave myself for that. I never got past the bias that fantasy baseball can bring, as a fan, and now as a current player (not in MLB) having played against some of these guys, it just feels weird, so I haven't done it since I began playing professionally and actually put more time and effort into my own game. It pays off. 5 years later, still going strong.
4. Red Bull vs. Coffee vs. No Caffine
Speaking of going strong... Law school can create some pretty horrible codependicies. You can call them addictions. It sounds really negative though. One such of these I picked up, coffee. I never really drank coffee in my first 24 years. I love the effects in the morning to get me going for school since my first year in 2008-2009. I kind of kicked the habit over the summer playing for Almere but by Australia in the winter and returning to Almere, I was hooked by 2010. This year I’ve been trying to quit, seemingly every week because I get these caffine crashes around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Factor that into playing baseball, you have to do some type of energy drink then before a game, and next thing you know – you’ve become a caffine fiend, crashing 2-3 times over the course of a long day at the ballpark. I had 3 days in a row last week when I kicked the coffeee. But she’s back again. Too hot, rich, and uplifting. More reliable than a girlfriend. More dangerous to my season than anything else…
5. things to do before you leave, especially in law school
Anytime you go somewhere for over 3 months, as I’ve been doing for quite some time, you just have to make a list of things to do before you go. Toiletrees and medications to get, baseball gear and sunflower seeds for teammates, cleaning up your apartment, saying goodbye to family and friends, etc. In a ball player/ law student life – the two most important things, the most time consuming and somewhat conflicual – battle each other come early April. As I crank up the weight lifting, stretching, cardio, yoga, arm exercises, abdominal workouts, and pitching practice – we are also winding down the semester in law school. Immigration Clinic – I am representing about 4 clients at once, wrting appaellete briefs for court, interviewing clients, and helping others fill out various applications. Complexities in the law. Constitutional law paper, Sports Law Seminar 40 page paper, and Criminal Law readings – and upcoming exams. The life of a pro baseball player does not juxtopose the life of a law student no matter how hard you try to make it all fit, it just won’t. Priortizing and adding another hour to each day certainly would help, but sometimes you just have to accept the inherent and constant busyness of it all, don’t give up but certainly don’t stress out, realize you’re living a fortunate lifestyle and try to make the most of it. Having done 5 exams in Almere after missing the last 6 weeks of law school in 2009, I would have to fathom that taking only two exams spread out over 2 weeks will be easier.. I hope so.
6. excitement about season & 7. chances & 8. goals for the year...
I think that anytime you’ve been doing something for the majority of your life, in this case, playing baseball organized since I was 6 years old, and unorganized (throwing a ball, swinging a bat) since I could barely walk, it becomes apart of you, ingrained for better or for worse. But like anything else in life, in large quantities, it become burdensome, mundane, and you can just get burned out. With last year’s Almere debacle, losing a lot in Western Australia, and basically having played for about 18 months straight on the road, I really needed a break. I even thought that break might become permanent. My arm was sore, my brain was craving some law school challenges, and my feet beckoned to settle a bit. I got a place in downtown Detroit, and for the first time really since before college, I felt a bit settled. I had a permanent home of my own, and a place I could always come back to that wasn’t the folks place. This excitement lasted about one month. By early October and the MLB baseball playoffs in full-swing, it had been about 2 months since I pitched those two memorable weekends for Hamburg in the Bundesliga. I was itching to get back on the diamond. Sepetmeber, October, November, December, January, February – it began to wear. I was dreaming, thinking, practicing, visualizing, ignoring, everything was baseball. The burnout was replaced pretty easily with desire to do this all again. It’s hard to say no, it’s almost impossible to turn down offers to play baseball for a living, and so I would like to say the decision was hard to retrurn, but mentally I had been thinking about it for so long. When I was down in Spring Training for the Tigers, interviewing for a position with them, it really hit me watching an early exhibition game in the Florida sun, I was going to be heading back to Europe, to live out a childhood fantasy come reality… to play baseball for money. Something I think millions of kids in America, if not all over the world, dream of doing. Maybe it was the longest layoff ever, maybe it was the freezing cold Detroit winter, maybe it was the countless indoor pitching sessions at 8 AM but I’ve never felt more excited to step on a field. At 27, you never know when it might be the last time, the things you take for granted at 22 or 23, that even then I tried so hard not to, are a lot easier to appreciate, and that’s my main goal this season. To appreciate it all. Every nuance of the game, every sacrifice bunt botched, every horrible ball-strike call, every win and every loss, every sunflower seed spit while cheering my team on, every rainy-cold-windy game you wish you could crawl up in a ball and not come out until the sun shines through, every scorching hot game that drenches your whole uniform with sweat., every ball in warmups thrown over your head that you have to give chase to, everytime the muddy 3n2 spikes have to be knocked together to get your grip and traction back, every dented and scuffed ball that remains in play, every German or English or Dutch or Spanish cry from the dugout or the fielders or the stands, every sore arm, or strained calf, or home run given up. You have to appreciate it, cherish it, remind yourself that you’re one of a lucky and fortunate few, to be able to support yourself doing something you love and that makes you happy – the good and the bad, the success and the failure – that’s baseball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And sometimes it Rains… think about that.
Goals:
I’ve never been much into putting my goals into a statistical equation. I got this perspective from my father. As much as we appreciate stats as a meaningful and essential element to understand baseball and measure success and failure, as a player, you have to put these things out of your mind. Some players are motivating by having good statistics, or the embarrassment of bad statistics, but I’ve been on both sides of that equation for so long, it doesn’t really phase me either way. I like to go into each game thinking it will be my last, and going into each inning, thinking it will be my last inning of the game, and each pitch of the inning could be my last pitch, and so therefore my goal is to throw each pitch as best as I possibly again, with the focus and fortitutde to make it successful because once it leaves my finger tips – everything, well almost everything is out of my control (except for balls hit back, bunted in front or to the right side where I need to cover first base). Personally, I would love to be recognized as the best pitcher in the country this season, but it’s a good pitcher’s league and I just want to be the best pitcher in the lifetime of me. If I do that, I’ll have success, and if I have success I think our team will. That’s how it goes as the foreign pitcher, a lot rides on your shoulders, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. HSV will be fine, I think we have a stronger team than when I came to pitch last year and help them sneak into the playoffs (4th place)… Reinforced the pitching with Rene who is a former national team member from the best baseball club in the South of the country. My good buddy from playing summer college ball in 2005, Max Warren of Harvard University, and of the Greek National team will be another starting pitcher/relief pitcher with his EU passport he doesn’t count as a foreigner. He’s brough along a great SS, his good friend who played college ball at UMASS and recently this past winter in the Melbourne Australia league, Sam Boone. We also have a Czech national team catcher who apparently can hit like crazy, a French national team outfielder, and most of the good defense and offensive players featured on last year’s playoff team. First place is within reach, and that means anything less than playoffs will be a failure. We started last week by splitting on the road with last year’s North Division champs, perennial North powerhouse Solingen. Going into our first two home games this weekend against Dortmund, we are 1-1 and I can’t wait to get the “rock on the bump” and show ‘em what the kid from Detroit can do with a whole season.
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