First off, starting with high school baseball the season is maybe three (3) months long. So, you start from tryouts in late February you end in the middle of May to the middle of June. So, you have three to four months in there that you are practicing for baseball during the whole year. That’s all you do for high school is three to four months of the year.
Once I l left high school I went to junior college (Olney Central). There you are have fall baseball. You have the month of Christmas off. Then you go right back into baseball. All you have off from junior college baseball is the summer. Then you go play baseball again. That’s really the main difference from high school baseball to junior college… was time. Lifting wise in junior college we did a whole lot more lifting. You start to hit the weights more. Obviously more than you did in high school you work out five days a week, maybe six days. A lot of the guys are more interested in working out at the college level. You have to, to stay healthy, get stronger and keep up with all the competition.
A step farther is when I left junior college and went to Indiana State. There you have people helping you. You have two or three strength coaches trying to make you stronger. Same thing you are working out five or six days a week there. They have more knowledge. They are giving you workouts to do. In junior college I was doing my own thing. I am working out whatever I want to work out. At ISU they will help you; they have strength coaches there showing you what to do. They can give you a weight plan if you wanted them to, a diet plan keeping you on the right weight.
I feel like from high school to junior college I got stronger but from junior college to ISU I got a lot stronger. I matured a lot more and that was the difference. That helped me in baseball. It helped me hitting the ball, throwing the ball, running, and kept me in better shape. I felt stronger throughout the year and that’s from working out.
Now, with minor league baseball, it’s an everyday deal. I am there for six to seven months out of the year. Last year we had six or seven scheduled days off in six months. So, you are everyday working out. You are everyday at the field, from two o’clock to ten or eleven o’clock at night. You have to eat right; you have to work out right. If not, halfway through the season, your body will start to break down,… you will get tired and what not. So, from high school where it is three (3) months to minor league baseball where I am at right now it’s every day. It’s a wear and tear on you.
There are a lot of intricate parts of baseball that you learn with each step. There are things that I wish I would have known when I was playing in high school. Talking to people in minor league baseball makes a difference. When I have a day off, I sit with the pitchers and I will ask them how they would pitch to someone or how they would pitch to me. Just hearing what they say, I wish I would have known that when I was back in high school. He (the pitcher) is going to try to throw me an inside fastball on this count, or he is going to throw a pitch low and away to me here. I just wish back in high school I would have known that. In high school I just went up just to see the ball and hit the ball. Now you start to learn why guys pitch you this way, what they are trying to do, what they want to do. It’s kind of like a game of cat and mouse. While I am out there hitting I am thinking what he wants to throw me right now. You are going to guess right every once in a while. So, that’s the difference, in high school I wish I would have known some of that stuff.
Last year I had an opportunity to go back to the high school and hit with them (Northview in Brazil, IN). I think I did three weeks in a row. I went up there early in the morning. Coach MacDonald started getting them to go in in the morning to hit, which is great. I worked with some of the kids. I wish when I was younger I could have learned something from someone older. I enjoyed that, I enjoyed going back, helping them, working out with them it helped me. I even ran with them a couple of times to see what they were doing and to help me get back into shape before I left. I enjoyed seeing how the kids are working, all the kids dream about going to college to play or even farther past that. So it’s enjoying for me to watch kids trying and giving the extra effort that is needed. What’s fun for me is when I go back and the kids ask me questions. Because, I was in the same situation five or six years ago, when I didn’t know what I know now. They were asking me what all do you need to do, how much more do I need to work, what do I need to work on. That’s more enjoying for me because I can tell them you can do all you want to do, hit more, hit as much as you want. You are only going to get better by as much work as you put in to it. I enjoy going there and a kid comes up and asks me, “what else can I work on”.
I have been following ISU since I left; I followed their last two weekends. I still talk to a lot of the guys to see how they are doing. I think they are going to have a good year. They all have to come together, play together, mesh as a team and they will have a good year.
I don’t have any regrets on where I went to school out of high school. I have learned every step of the way people has been there to help me. I have been taught well. I enjoyed my two (2) years in junior college. I learned a lot in those two years. That’s all I did for two years was baseball. Junior college was a small town and it was baseball six – seven days a week and I enjoyed that. I learned a lot from Coach (Dennis) Conley. It’s was junior college –it wasn’t fancy. We took two (2) small vans to all our games… that’s including all our equipment in the vans. The vans held ten or eleven people and you are taking twenty-five people to the games. You have guys laying on each other. So you learn to appreciate what I am getting now in Minor League baseball. In Minor League you get fed every once in a while. You take Turner buses. I have learned to appreciate that a whole lot more from where I came from. But…there’s nothing I would change from all of that.
You to meet a lot of people in Minor League ball. The first year you play with a group of guys. Then when you go back to spring training you still have those guys but now you have other guys that played on different teams. I have talked to ten or fifteen guys that I have met through Minor League baseball just to see what they are doing in the off-season. Some of the guys go home and get jobs; a lot of the guys went back to school like I did in the fall. They take classes then after fall school is over they kick it into gear. You learn from what everyone else is doing too.
The difference between my first and second year in the minors is the time. My first year, I was there from June until the beginning of September. Last year I arrived in Arizona in March. I was in Arizona from March until April. I flew from Arizona to North Carolina. I was in North Carolina until June; I came home maybe one or two days for All-Star break. I was then back there until September. So from March until September I was basically gone.
You learn it’s a long season, so there are ups and downs. I struggled at the beginning of the year and I was real hard on myself. You think it’s the end of the world and are a month into the season and you are hitting 250. You are hard on yourself and you have to realize there are still three months left. You are not even half-way through the season. So, basically, what I learned last year is it’s a long season. It’s a grind. You can’t have too many ups and too many downs. You just have to stay mellow through the whole year. It’s more mental on you than it is physical.
This year I am not sure where I will start off the season. I just want to go out to spring training, do the best I can. They will put me where they think I should be. From there… I just play the best I can and let everything else take care of itself. They don’t tell anyone where we are going. They might hint around about it but we don’t know. They haven’t told me anything and they don’t need to tell me anything. I will just go out and they will just put me where they think I need to be. They can’t keep me down if I am playing well. So as long as I do what I can do then –the rest will take care of itself.
It was really neat having two other Sycamores on the team last year. (Nick) Ciolli’s locker was to the left and (Jacob) Petricka’s locker was to the right. Basically similar to how it was at ISU. The day Petricka got drafted Nick and I was in a hotel room, he (Jacob Petricka) texted Nick or I and told us that he maybe was going to be with us. We were excited and we were joking around about how we were all three back together. It ended up being that way. We had a good time together and it was neat. Nobody else on our team is like that. We are the only guys that went to school with each other. They were all joking around about us. We have five, six or seven guys in the White Sox’s organization that played at ISU. So that’s pretty neat. That bond helped out when we go to spring training, Nick and I were there and it was the first time going through that. You don’t know what to expect going down there. Having each other, being around each other, working out together helped out a lot.
My family has always been there from the point I got started playing on a traveling team when I was younger until now. They have always been my biggest supporters, my mom, dad, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, everybody. They are obviously my biggest supporters. They followed me around everywhere. That’s appreciated, when I can go to the game and see my family in the crowd and friends come to watch, that means a lot to me.
As far as coaches, Coach Conley helped me out tremendously. He has probably helped me out the most just coming from high school. Learning the six days a week of baseball, …teaching me a lot of things. He’s probably been the biggest support with baseball that I have had. Like I have said in minor league baseball I have met so many new people that have helped. I will have connections through that that I would have never met otherwise. Jim Dressler was a huge support to me my whole time playing ball — writing things in the paper. He would always keep my grandparents updated. He would call the house, helped them with the internet, and what not. I appreciate all he did for me and all he did for my family.
I don’t know where my career’s going to go. I play the outfield right now but if they want to move me they will move me. That’s what I have to worry about, getting better in the outfield.
In junior college and even at ISU we would do some speed training drills. On Sundays at Olney we would go back to school and Sundays would be our speed days. We would work on quick agility type movements. So that’s one day a week. At ISU on Tuesdays and Thursdays we would have speed training. In minor league baseball you do speed training every day to get loose. That’s five-six days out of the week you are doing speed training. There’s a strength coach working with your speed every day – he’s always there. If I want some extra work there are different kinds of speed training drills and he would take me out to the side and we would work on something different every day. As far as trying to get faster that’s the opportunity that I have. –Just getting faster in the outfield.
