They came over for one glass of wine and stayed until midnight. They drank all my wine, smoked all my cigars and ate all my food. We were all supposed to go out to eat, but I'm still waiting to go. They brought their kids over and made my wife watch them. |
They're for real this year. I figured they'd be one of the teams to beat in the district. They're one of the top teams in the state, actually. |
This kid is really bright. He's very observant, doesn't miss anything. The second time around the league, he already knew most of the pitchers. |
This spring, we're seeing him get back to where he was at. He's still made some changes, and he's still not exactly mechanically where he was two years ago. It's a little different, but it works. What I'm seeing, though, is that instead of worrying about mechanics, he's worrying about hitting. He still has a long way to go, like every young player. |
We didn't have any easy games. |
We have actually used his swing over the last couple years to teach our guys. We like the way that he uses his lower half. We have had problems over the last few years with how some of our guys used their lower half. They were basically beat before they started. |
We have played so many close games this year. We lost some on crazy things and won some on crazy things. I think the key to it is we've been in so many, that nothing surprises us anymore. |
We tease Joe all the time. We tell him, 'You've got the league set up now.' But teams can't get him out going by the book anymore. If Joe swung the bat like this all year, I'm sure some pitchers would be a little more careful with him than they've been in the postseason. |
We're not perfect, but this is such a gutsy bunch of guys. If you ever doubt or second-guess them ... watch out. |
When he was on opposing teams, we actually used his swing to teach off of. Some of the things he does, we talked about for two years ... so we know his swing pretty good. |
When he was young he threw so hard you had no chance. And when he first broke in, he didn't have that split-fingered pitch. This guy is still a power pitcher. |