A NEW SEASON BEGINS

I have been pretty negligent about posting this season.  No excuse, just lazy.  First some follow up on the last 2 years kids. 

Jack Holman is a sophomore at UCLA.  He is supposed to be a catcher, but their regular catcher who is a junior is amazing.  Jack started the year at DH and has been pretty commanding with the bat.  He is the Bruins home run leader.  Relatively early in the season, the first baseman got injured so he was moved to 1st base where he played the rest of the season.  His fielding needs some work, but overall a good move.  I think that is where he will be playing from here on out.  He is a sociology major because it is the easiest.  He has met no one other than the baseball team.  A very weird college experience.  We went to California April and got to watch him play twice.  His uncle is the CFO of Daou Vineyards in Paso Robles and we were treated to an amazing wine tasting with tremendous wines and a charcuterie plate to die for.  The one wine had received a 100 on Wine Spectator.  His parents have been so good to us.

We then headed to Pepperdine where St Marys was playing.  Got to see Javy and Nathan (not one of our kids but got to know his mom well0.  Javy has a fractured hamate and has not been playing most of the second half of the season.  He did graduate at the end of May and will be having treatment for his non-healing fracture this summer while starting his Masters in Business at St Marys.  Planning to play next year as he gets an extra year for Covid. 

Then it was on to San Luis Obispo to see Steven.  We took him out to dinner which is always entertaining.  The game we went to see, he was not pitching, so we watched him rake the ground at 3rd base.  His mom and I have been staying in close contact.  He has been the starter on the weekends and really doing well. He did get thrown out for 4 games for using the f word but lesson learned. This summer he is not going to play as his hip has been bothering him and he needs a break.  

Then it was on to San Bernardino to see our 3 guys from last summer. They presented me with a Yotes hat as they were tired of seeing me wearing my St., Mary's hat.  Good thing too as I had gotten strafed by a sea gull in Santa Barbara.  They gave us both Yotes hoodies.  Had a great post-game dinner with them, their parents and their girlfriends.  Derek is graduating this year with a degree in history but he wants to stay on in the program and help coach,/manage.  Andres graduates this year too but may take a year off to travel.  Riely has another year to go in liberal arts.  The biggest news is they made it to the DII Word Series.  They got to the semi finals. For a team that is the Rodney Dangerfield of teams from an armpit of a town, it was great to see them get some respect.  If they hadn't been playing in North Carolina, we would have gone. 

Now on to this year's group.  We started with 3.  More later


Comments

  1. CarleenJuly 1, 2023 at 12:19 PM

    For some reason I can't get on to add to this, so I will do it as a comment.
    First up , the group from this year.
    Frankie is a catcher who goes to New Jersey Institue of Technology in Hoboken. He is actually from the Seattle area. Majoring in mechanical engineering and hopes to come back and get a job at Boeing. Of Italian descent on both sides and a delight. One day I caught him reading a BOOK in the back yard. NJIT is a D3 school where he plays catcher. He was on a 10 day contract. After the first 6 games, the owner sent 6 kids home because he "had too many". Some of the kids had come all the way from Colorado and Arizona. Frankie was one of the ones cut. I met his folks at his last game and his dad is on the board of First Federal. They own a home in Pt Townsend to which they are moving. Dumb idea to cut this kid. Even dumber is cutting the kid who is the nephew of the GM of the San Francisco 49ers. Not that I am into nepotism but, cutting any of these kids was cruel. I don't weep much for Frankie though. He is in Italy now at a college course on Italian culture and cuisine.

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