Walking in Memphis

When the Defensive Specialist put out the call for readers to send in their experiences from college, pro and independent baseball, he didn’t expect more than one or two posts a month to trickle into the Deep in the Hole mailbox. Well the simple fact is that the mailbox has blown up with all the traffic pouring in! The Defensive Specialist will endeavour to mix it up and bring snap shots to the loyal readers whenever possible.

Leading off our guest blogs is West Australian, Tyler Anderson who is a senior right handed pitcher at William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri. Tyler’s team – The Owls play in the NAIA. Here’s what he has to say:

This past weekend we opened our season in Memphis, Tennessee. This is about 6 hours from Fulton, Missouri where my school William Woods University is located. We had Friday off school because of a winter holiday so we practiced in the morning and left for Memphis at about 1.00pm. We take two 12-seater buses for 30 guys plus coaches... Ill let you do the math. We were unsure if we were even going to play this weekend due to snow and bad weather in Memphis. We stayed at a nice hotel in which we have 4 guys to a room, with 2 double beds so you get to know your teammates pretty well on road trips. The first night I woke up to find my team mate spooning with me, the following night before my start he offered to sleep on the floor which is a good thing about being a senior and a starting pitcher.

The first day we had two 7 innings game at Christian Brothers University, a D2 school. We weren’t sure what to expect as they play in a really good conference so we figured they should be ok. After a disappointing end to last season where my team went 35-14 and was ranked in the NAIA top 25 but unfortunately lost in the conference championship game, we were looking to get off to a hot start as we feel we have a lot to prove this year.

We led off the first inning throwing up a 3 spot and never really looked back again, Our #4 and #5 hitters Garret Oliver and LJ Watson went off going 7 for 8 combined with a homerun each. This was ironic as the drunk fans in left field were all over Garret Oliver for most of the game telling him how bad he was and also some things about his mother I can’t repeat in this blog. At one point a fan yelled, "Garret you suck" to which the person sitting next to the him said “Garret has more hits then our whole team combined”. A junior, Logan Lawson started game one for us and gave us 4 solid innings as we were on a 75 pitch limit to start the season. Logan gave up 2 runs in 4 innings and struck out 4. The first game ended 8-4 and a good start to the season for the Owls.

In game 2 we had a slow start not scoring until the 4th but after that everything went our way as we put up 11 runs over the next 4 innings. Once again Oliver and Watson did most of the damage with a 4-8 day combined and Brian Bishop our 3rd baseman also had a homerun on the day. Eric Switzer started the game for us, a crafty left he threw 4.2 innings for 1 run only giving up 2 hits. It was a good day for the William Woods Owls finishing the day with 2 good wins, most of the players were pretty excited after the game because we were going to eat at the Commissary - a barbecue restaurant in Memphis that has some of the best food I have ever eaten. With our coaching staff weighing a combined weight of 1300 pounds and possibly being the biggest coaching staff in the nation, we knew that one thing they did know was where to find good food.

On road trips we have a 12 o’clock curfew so we got back to the hotel about 9pm so some of the boys went swimming or in the hot tub and others played a game of poker. Also the 4 Canadians on our team were watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Vancouver. We have a pretty diverse team with people from all over the USA, 4 people from 4 different provinces in Canada, myself and one of the coaches is also from Australia - Zac Stokes. This leads to a lot of arguing about which country is the best and clearly it’s Australia.

The weather looked bad for the 2nd day of play so the coaches from both teams agreed to play one 9 inning game instead of the usual two 7's. I had the start in this game and was looking to have a solid first outing. The game got off to a quick start with both teams trading zeros until the 4th inning where we put 1 run on the board. I pitched well for the first few innings, throwing strikes and getting them to put balls in play. Knowing we had a 75-pitch limit I was looking to pitch into the 4th or 5th inning. I raced through the first 4 allowing only 1 or 2 hard hit balls but not allowing any hits. In a close game I was just looking to keep putting 0's on the board and allow our teams bats to come alive, and they did. We scored 1 in the 4th, 2 in the 5th, 2 in the 6th, 2 in the 7th, 1 in the 8th and 2 in the 9th.

Our number 8 hitter and catcher Matthew Denney led the way with 3 hits including a massive homerun over the high fence in center field. LJ Watson also stayed hot with a 2-4 day including his 2nd homerun of the year. I pitched in the 6th where I got the first out of the inning, but then walked the next hitter, I was taken out of the game with a no hitter going, I gave up 0 hits, 1 ER, 3k's and 5 walks in 5 1/3 innings. This was a pretty good start for the first of the year, I was pretty happy with that. 5 walks was not the best though. Our offense looked really good scoring 29 runs in 3 games with arguably our best hitter and last year’s player of the year in our conference Tyler Tamayose only having one hit for the weekend. All in all we had a very successful first weekend of play and we left straight from the yard to go back to Fulton, Missouri. About an hour into our drive we hit bad weather and a lot of snow and ice. Our 6 hour bus trip turned into 9 and a half painful hours on the bus and we arrived home at 12.30am.

We play this weekend in our home opening (weather permitting) against Clarke College from Iowa. 

Fantastic effort for you first Deep in the Hole blog Tyler. The Defensive Specialist would be having a mental breakdown if he was coaching you and you walked 5 guys but it was your first start of the year so the Defensive Specialist will let you slide!

Any other pro or college guys out there itching to tell a story, jump on your PC and bang it out. The Defensive Specialist will assist in shaping it into literary gold! Stay tuned next week for a post on a hitting camp, junior college action and hopefully some inside dope from a contest featuring the number 1 college team in the US!