“Let’s start this installment with some interesting numbers.

16: The day of February that I am writing this article.

21: The day of February that the University of Dayton baseball team begins its 2003 season.

1: Days that snow has not blanketed Stuart Field (our home field) since practice started three weeks ago. It rained that day.

0: Times that we have practiced on Stuart Field since practice began three weeks ago.

“There are reasons that big league teams go to Florida for spring training and it is more than just the exquisite specials you can get on Mahi Mahi down there. Midwestern weather from a ballplayer’s perspective during the month of February, is absolutely vile. The cold, coupled this year with the constant presence of snow, is not at all conducive to the playing of the game in an outside venue. Consequently, in preparing for this season, there has been only one option viable in which to practice, the hard reality of a gym floor.”

“The gym floor of which I speak is housed in the Frericks Center here on campus. Approximately 60 yards long and 20 yards wide, the wood floor was once the home of University of Dayton basketball during its glory years of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Basketball has long since moved on to the Arena, but nearly every other sport here at UD relies on this floor for some part of its training. With the weather being as it has been, we have not just relied on the floor for some of our training, but all of it. Although we get much done while inside, the sad reality remains, all that the gym floor gives is not nearly enough.”

“Please allow me to describe a typical practice in order to assert my claim that I may not libel the poor floor. Walking onto the floor in Dayton Baseball T-shirts, shorts, and hats (side note: The hats are completely due to baseball convention. No one needs to wear a hat inside. Seriously, basketball players have gotten by for over a century without them.) one immediately notices the condition of the floor as we start to stretch. I spread my legs and lean to one side, trying largely in vain to stretch my hamstrings, when I feel both of my feet start to slide apart. The floor has absolutely no friction. Consequently, it is imperative that you spit on the ground before every rep wetting your shoes to gain the traction you need in order to make any sort of cut. When hitting, the typical ratio usually is about 10 swings for every time necessary to wet your shoes. All kidding aside, the slipperiness of the gym floor can be dangerous when practicing. It is a lot like playing tennis on clay, in moving laterally to catch a ground ball you slide even after stopping your feet. The lack of traction makes pulled and strained muscles something common and practice becomes quite interesting when one wears an older pair of gym shoes.”

“Once we are finished stretching, practice begins. As is our program’s style, even though we are practicing inside, it is still at full speed and we do almost everything we would do in a normal practice. Balls skip off of the gym floor and guys are sprinting everywhere. We are expected to slide when we run bases and dive when it is appropriate in a defensive play. Floor burns are shown off to one another like medals. We do rundowns (aka we play pickle), work on our bunt coverages, practice our pop-up communication albeit I, as a leftfielder, am but a step away from the shortstop, and even take a full round of infield.”

“Yet, in all the drills, it feels like we are playing on a little league field. Everything is miniaturized. The baselines, throws, and even personal space shrink. When taking infield, my throw from the outfield to second base is the distance that normally the shortstop would throw to second base on a double play. When running around the bases, you are constantly turning left due to the reduced lengths. This lack of distance, in addition to the difficulty in footing, makes practice extremely difficult. It is not difficult from a physical standpoint. In fact, these are our “easiest” practices of the year. Yet from a mental standpoint, these are by far the most challenging.”

“It is a constant fight to keep your concentration on what must be done in your play even as the other side of your brain insists that effort is useless because this “isn’t even real baseball.” Secondly, it is easy to be challenged by the thoughts of what our competitors can do while we are stuck inside on a gym floor. For example, some schools have already played upwards of 20 games while we have been sliding across the gym floor. Yet, what is even more frustrating is the local schools that although stuck inside have extremely nice indoor facilities. Schools like Kent State and Bowling Green, because of their D-I football programs, have huge indoor Astroturf football fields to practice on. I would gladly trade my floor burns for their Astroturf burns. With these thoughts, questions creep into your mind such as “am I going to be ready to play when the time comes? Are we going to be ready to play when it is time?”

“These questions and thoughts are what makes being indoors so difficult. As the season comes rushing towards us, answering these questions and thoughts might prove as difficult as playing. These questions will serve as an additional challenge to that of the extremely large challenge we will have before us as we open up on Friday.”

Allow me to close with a few more numbers.

25: The current temperature in Dayton, Ohio.

70: The current temperature in Tempe, Arizona where I will be playing baseball
outside in one day.