Thirty-two degrees outside. Wind chill making it feel 15.
The guys are peeling off the tarp. The gloves are being popped. Hard to believe in the midst of these subfreezing temperatures that it’s time to hear the umpire yell, “Play Ball”.
It’s February in Charlottesville and across the street from Sean Singletary, JR Reynolds, and the hoops crew making a run at the field of 65, Brian O’Connor’s Virginia Cavaliers are already eight games deep in their schedule.
“Number one at this time of year, you gotta work to get your pitchers arms ready,” says O’Connor on an off day where the temperature will peak at 35 degrees. “Position players are going to get enough swings and we’re going to be ready to swing the bat and we’re going to get enough ground balls to be good defensively. It’s just a matter of building that endurance in pitchers’ arms and that takes time”
The Atlantic Coast Conference predicted the Cavaliers to finish third in the Coastal Division but also credited them with four first place votes.
“We were predicted to finish seventh overall in the entire league last year and finished third overall,” says O’Connor, whose team will not play a conference game until they travel to Wake Forest on March 3. “It doesn’t make a difference to me as a coach or the players. It all plays out on the field. Our league is so strong.”
The team will travel to a lot of places this season, including Charlotte, Blacksburg, and Clemson, South Carolina, but after three straight years of making the postseason and not advancing to a super regional, the only destination for this Virginia team is Omaha, Nebraska, the home of the College World Series.
“I think it’s like that every year, to tell you the truth. For how hard we work and for how much we put into the working out in the off-season, if your ultimate goal isn’t Omaha, you’re selling yourself short,” said reigning ACC Player of the Year Sean Doolittle. “We really believe that if we take care of the things that we can take care of in the meantime, winning the games we should win and playing the best baseball that we can and being consistent for the whole year, then Omaha might take care of itself.”
Down the road, the boys of summer are just taking their first swings in the opening days of Spring Training in Viera, Florida.
The Washington Nationals (www.nationals.mlb.com) are in their first full season under the Kasten-Lerner Group, and in many respects, this team can finally be viewed as financially level.
New manager Manny Acta begins his first whirl in a manager’s position after serving as the New York Mets third base and infield coach since 2004.
“Manny Acta is the right guy because he’s a young guy who knows how to communicate with young players,” said Hall of Fame pitcher and new Nationals TV analyst Don Sutton. “He’s going to be a player manager and that doesn’t mean he’s going to let everybody do what they want to do all the time. He has a very simple set of rules and a simple set of expectations. He’s not a guy that had anything handed to him so he knows how to struggle. He knows how to work and he knows how to cope.”
Disregard whatever the forecast tells you! Fire up the grill and put on the hot dogs. It may feel more like frost bite than a first pitch but truth be told… It’s baseball season.
For more information, go to:
www.virginiasports.com
Wes McElroy hosts “The Final Round” on ESPN 840. M-F 3pm-5pm.