48 Hours!!

[playball15]

Thanks alot wakeflip! Good job Eagles!

[tmh8286]

Nice win by the Eagles.  Justin Mitchell arguably had the best game of anyone tonight.  He was beaned in the bottom of the third - after a sickening thud against his helmet he stood there for a few seconds, seemed a little dazed but didn't go down or anything, then ran on to first.  In a later hit he was on first, Danny Duffy, Brendon's brother (I think) hits a double, and Justin makes it from first to home in the time that Duffy makes it to second.  Absolutely blinding speed.  He also made a couple of great grabs in the outfield.  He really had a great outing.

With the win blowing like it was today I thought we might experience home run derby type hitting, but not so.  There were some home runs, but the wind wasn't catching the ball like I thought it would.

[MrsSmith]

I wish I could say that I enjoyed the baseball game today, but I didn't!!  Somehow we had the privilege of having the most obnoxious student fans behind us YELLING the whole game.  Some of their cheering was fine.  Most of it was about drawing the crowd's attention to themselves.  Somehow they thought that they were supposed to be giving a stand up comedy routine instead of supporting the team.  ARGH!

I was very embarrassed to be associated with this kind of behavior.  One of the new player's parents was sitting beside us.  They weren't impressed with the ORU student.  It's a shame that a few students have to give that kind of impression.

[tmh8286]

I wish I could say that I enjoyed the baseball game today, but I didn't!!  Somehow we had the privilege of having the most obnoxious student fans behind us YELLING the whole game.  Some of their cheering was fine.  Most of it was about drawing the crowd's attention to themselves.  Somehow they thought that they were supposed to be giving a stand up comedy routine instead of supporting the team.  ARGH!

I was very embarrassed to be associated with this kind of behavior.  One of the new player's parents was sitting beside us.  They weren't impressed with the ORU student.  It's a shame that a few students have to give that kind of impression.

Ditto, MrsSmith.  It's an ongoing problem that only seems to get worse each year.  After today I really wondered if I want to continue attending games.  It's just too unpleasant - it really ruins the game.  I think I'd rather stay home and listen on the radio. 

BTW, I spoke with a family member of one of the players as well, and they were also pretty disgusted by the students' behavior. 

I don't know what should or can be done about it, but when the behavior of students starts running off PAYING fans, there's a problem.

[Bogus Smith]

In case members of the "student cheering section" happen on to this site, let me say that some of the cheering was very good....chanting "Duffy, Duffy, Duffy", encouraging the team - both individually and as a team when something good happened, and even getting on the WM second baseman when he muffed a high pop-fly that got twisted in the wind (that was deserving of a little ribbing).  However, when you start yelling personal attacks on opposing players' family members (mothers, sisters and grandmothers were not off-limits with these guys), making nationality slams on players named Pedro, and many other things throughout an entire game.  It wasn't just a one-off slip in poor judgment but an intentional way of trying to take the attention away from the game and getting the players to acknowledge them in order to disrupt their game.  Subtle (and sometimes direct) comments of being over-the-top did not sink in with these guys.

As most people who know me will attest, I am all for a good time, home field advantage, creating as much of a hostile environment for the opposing team as possible and rooting on the good guys - I did the same thing when I was a student here and continue to do it today; however, when it gets personal and takes away from what ORU is about as a school (we're not a secular school and I hope that we never become one), then the students need to go find another school or become more "prayerful" in how they want to protray their witness in the sports arena.

The natural reaction to a student that reads this and sees themselves is to say - fine, I just won't come to the games if I can't "have fun".  That's not the intent here and if that becomes reality in this case, then you're missing the point and don't want to reflect on this properly.  The real purpose of bringing light to this is to correct the behavior, come to the games to cheer the team, put doubt in the umpires' minds so that they will make the next call for the good guys, and magnify the opposing team's mistakes in a way that makes ORU different from all of the other schools that these teams will go to this season.

As the mother of one of our players said to me today as she was watching her first game at ORU, I'm all for free speech and having a good time at the game, but I wouldn't expect what I'm hearing at an ORU game.  Hopefully the students will come back and show what some good razzing can do to liven up the ballpark.

[Bogus Smith]

OK, now that I have my "rant" out of the way, here is waht I saw at yesterday's game...

We seem to have some very good bats in the lineup.  We all know about Juan Martinez and Michael Notarro, but the bats that impressed me yesterday were Danny Duffy (seems to be a good replacement for his brother), P.J. Sequeira in LF and Johnny Roberts.  I like the fact that Justin Mitchell is batting in the 9-hole.  It seems that Rob puts his fastest runners in the 1- and 9-holes and being put at the bottom of the lineup is not necessarily a negative in Rob's scheme of things.

Pitching will be strong.  Andre did have a decent day (although he lasted 3-2/3 innings).  I thought he was being taken out more for pitch count considerations, but it was obvious that Andre was being hit well by W. Mich.  Two of Andre's runs were unearned due to a dropped fly ball in LF at the fence.  Mark Serrano came in for Andre and I thought he was going to be our #3 starter; however, it seems like maybe Mark may be our mid-week starter.  Mark did a great job on W. Mich and really did a nice job.  TJ Kelly started out like he did last season - being hit hard and not really doing the job that he did late in 2008.  I think TJ will be fine with more game situations.

Fielding will be OK, but there were several mistakes made - including the aforementioned error in LF - that need to be ironed out in the future games.  Kyle Price is a solid fielder at 3B.  He continues to struggle at the plate and hopefully can work out the kinks to become a solid 8-hole player.

Looking forward to seeing Jerry Sullivan pitch today and, if we get to the 9th inning with a close game, I would expect to see TJ again to close out and improve on his outing yesterday.