(not really) Hump Day

Wednesday is usually considered Hump Day for Ponce week -- the two days on Monday and Tuesday leave you tired and sore and wondering if you can make it. This year is a little different. First, since yesterday's afternoon games were rained out, getting up this morning wasn't so difficult and Wednesday didn't seem quite so daunting. Second, they announced this morning that they will make up yesterday's rain out by playing 3 5-inning games (or 1:45 minutes whichever comes first) on Thursday. So Thursday becomes the new Hump day -- likely to be very sore and tired tomorrow night -- maybe even wibbled.

The schedule is made easier for Team C because we are still on a winning streak -- taking two games today by scores of 5-4 and 12-0. The first game was against the only other undefeated team to date. I started pitching and we had a 4-1 lead when I finished after three innings. We added a run in the fourth and then they got 3 runs in the 5th to make it 5-4. We held them off in the sixth for the win. I was 0-2 at bat. Our team has unusually good (particularly for Ponce) defense with 5 or 6 stellar plays by the centerfielder, shortstop, third baseman and first baseman and pretty much all the routine plays made efficiently. Very easy to pitch when you have good fielding behind you. In the second game, we scored early and often for the win. I was 1-2 with an rbi and was hit by a pitch (if I could learn to skip second helpings it never would have touched me.) We now stand as the only unbeaten team -- and the 2 teams we play in the three games tomorrow (we play one of them twice) have each yet to get a win. Overconfidence lurking again. The teams with the two best records at the end of Thursday will play in the championship game on Friday morning.

For Red Sox fans -- Victor Rodriguez is one of the coaches here (I played for him the other three years I came down) and is the Red Sox Minor League Hitting Coordinator. He is very high on a young left-handed first baseman in the minor leagues named Anthony Rizzo -- he said one of the managers of an opposing team in the Single A league Rizzo played in last year said Rizzo was the best player in the league -- a very good hitter and elite fielder. Rizzo was diagnosed with cancer 2 years ago and missed a year and last year was his first year back. Victor also thinks that Lars Anderson, the former top-ranked Sox prospect who had a bad year last year, still has a chance of being a very good hitter and player. Victor keeps saying "remember these are just kids" and they take time to adjust and mature. He thought Anderson might have felt some pressure by being ranked the top propect and put too much pressure on himself. He also mentioned Ryan Westmoreland as a good hitter and a really great runner, but because of injuries hasn't yet been able to show what kind of fielder he is or throwing arm he has. Jose Inglesias is a Cuban-defector shortstop -- just 19 years old who is an exciting prospect. Victor was very impressed that Inglesias hit .280 in the Arizona Fall League against major league/high minor league talent. For both Inglesias and another 19-20 year old prospect, Oscar Tejada -- Victor warns people not to listen when they hear "another Hanley Ramirez." They are just young kids and Ramirez is a special athlete, so it is unreasonable to put those kinds of expectations on the young players.

Someone asked if my coach, Stan Cliburn, might be the brother of Van Cliburn -- I think not. Stan has a twin brother Stu Cliburn (also a coach in the Minnesota Twins system) and they are baseball lifers from Mississippi. Concert pianists don't come to mind this week. The atmosphere here is very much guy and athletic smells (imagine), blue language and sexist humor(?), stories, bragging -- perhaps "aged adolescent locker room chic." It makes you realize that a lot of adolescent behavior (good and bad) may be as much setting-related as it may be age-related. It is part of the charm (and the grimace) of the experience that you get to play like and act like a kid for a week -- even if your body rebels and your mind knows better.

More tomorrow after the new Hump Day.