Uni Games

I know I haven't posted in a while, but if you follow me on twitter you would know that I've been getting stuck into college trying to earn that degree. Now when I first started at the Australian College of Physical Education, the tutors and older students told us to get the most out of your college experience you should join in extra curricular activities. Since I've started at college I've played in the Oz Tag team and I am also in the mixed netball team to play at the University Games.

In America college sports is huge, but here in Australia its not taken as seriously. The University Games in a 5 day tournament where all the Universities come together and compete in different sporting events. We don't have a baseball team at school so I decided that I should try out for the netball team. At the tryout I didn't do too good, but I think I only got it because I was taller than most people. You're probably wondering what netball is, and the easiest explanation I can give you is that it's a bit like basketball but you can't bounce the ball or move once you have possession of the ball. It's also designed to be a women's sport but I'm playing on the mixed team with guys and girls. Today I had my first practise with the team and after quite a while I think I may finally understand some of the rules but with a little less than two months to go until we go away for the University Games, I'm pretty sure I'll know the finer points of the game.

Highlights from the ANZ Championship, the professional netball league in Australia

Back to Petersham Oval

Anyone who has ever played baseball in Sydney will surely be familiar with Petersham Oval. Petersham Oval is sacred ground to cricket and to baseball. For those of you who didn't know, Sir Donald Bradman scored his maiden 1st class century there and walked down the same path I walk down many times to enter the field.

I joined the Petersham family back in 2007 when I was 16 years old and have nothing but good things to say about the club. I say Petersham family because it really does feel like family. When I joined I didn't know many people at the club but they welcomed me with open arms and make me feel apart of the Petersham tradition. In my first year at the club I played in what is called 3rd Grade which is essentially the 3rd division team. We won the tournament that year and ever since then, I have bled 'Tersham' blood. Although I had a minor stint with another club in the same league, Petersham will always be my true home for winter baseball.

Last weekend I decided to go watch the opening round of the Sydney Winter Baseball League and it felt special being back to Petersham Oval. I initially wasn't going to play, but when I arrived I was persuaded to strap on the cleats and throw an inning in 1st Grade. It ended up being a good inning as I struck out the inside in the 8th inning. Safe to say at the end of the game, it felt good to be wearing my number 21 Petersham jersey one more time.

What now?

As most of you would know I was released by the Minnesota Twins in January. After being unsuccesful in my attempt to re-sign before Spring Training began I had to find something else to do with myself in the meantime. The options were find a real job, or go back to school. I chose the latter option and am now going back to school.

I am now enrolled at the Australian College of Physical Education located in Homebush where the Sydney Olympics were held. As you can probably tell by the name of the school and the location the school is very sports orientated and only offers degrees in sporting fields. I am doing a Bachelors of Health and Movement course and then do 1 more year of study after that to get my qualifications to teach in High School.

It may not be the course I wanted to go in life, but for now, I will be attending school and doing my best to complete this degree.

Playing touch football during our break, that's me far right in the making the tag.

ABL Playoffs - Elimination Playoff vs Adelaide Bite

So after a 45 game regular season it was now time for the playoffs. Since we finished 4th in the regular season we had to travel to Adelaide for the first round of the playoffs. It was a best of 5 series, winner goes on, and the loser goes home.

Due to it being Australia Day on Thursday, we had to fly the team out on two separate days. I left with about 14 other players on Wednesday. Once again, caught the train into the airport with Joey Hage and Tyler Collins.

When we arrived in adelaide we had so much time to kill, so I decided that time was best killed in my room. I made the terrible mistake of taking a nap at 7:00pm, and I didn't wake up until 9:00pm so i was up all night. Luckily my room mate made the same mistake so we found ways to entertain ourselves like watching movies on the iPad and playing Monopoly on the iPad. We finally fell asleep around 4:00am and that means, we had an epic sleep in. I woke up about midday while Jacob woke up around 1:30pm. We were just relaxing in our room until Aaron Sookee called Jacob at 1:50pm telling us the bus to go to the field leaves in 10 minutes. So Jacob and me both jumped up and got ready, and we were downstairs in the bus with 5 minutes to spare.

Game 1
Like we always do, we gave Craig Anderson the ball and he delivered a workmans like outing going 6 2/3 innings giving up 3 runs, all of which were unearned on 5 hits. The rest of the pitching staff did an equally good job as they came in to throw 2 1/3 shutout innings. David Kandilas was the offensive star of the night. He went 1 for 4, drove in 3 runs and scored a run himself.

After the game I just went back to my room to relax and hopefully get to sleep early but once again, that plan was an epic fail. I was up to about 2:00am again. I finally fell asleep, but was woken up at 4:00am by a crazy drunk guy banging on my room door. For some strange reason I thought Jacob was outside so I was just going to get up and open the door, but the banging got more aggressive so Jacob got up and called the front desk, while I tried to talk to the drunk guy through the door trying to convince him that this wasn't his room. He thought we were telling him lies, he also thought our name was Jeremy. He came back a few times but eventually left us alone around 4:40am. It's funny what alcohol can do to people isn't it.

When I finally woke up I didn't have much time to do anything so I just had lunch and packed my stuff to get in the van to go to the field.

Game 2
We went down 8-3. We scored all our runs in the 3rd inning as Paul Mildren went the distance to record a complete game for Adelaide. I pitched from the 6th to 8th inning. I had success in my first two innings facing the minimum amount of hitters, but ran into trouble in the 8th after a few defensive miscues led to 3 runs being scored. My velocity was around 89-92mph consistently over the 3 innings so that's one positive.  Funny thing happened when I came out for my 2nd inning. The umpire behind the plate actually apologized to me for making a bad call in what would have been the 3rd strike to the Adelaide hitter. I struck him out on the very next pitch, so the bad call didn't really affect the outcome of the at at, but it was nice to know that umpires themselves, do admit to making mistakes.

I woke up quite late again, so all I did was eat lunch and get in the bus to go to the field.

Game 3
After one of our biggest offensive outbursts of the year where we scored 8 runs through the first 3 innings the rain started to come down, and it came down in a hurry. We waited for the rain to stop before we resumed play, but as soon as the rain stopped, there was a power outage and the lights at the field didn't turn back on. We waited around until about 10:00pm before we left the field, but we managed to keep ourselves entertained in the dark. Adelaide had small toy baseballs that lit up and changed colors so we thought it would be the perfect time to try and play cricket in the dark. It turned out to be a great success as both teams joined in on the fun. The bad thing about this rainout and power outage is that we would have to restart the game tomorrow with the scores tied at 0-0.



Day 4 in Adelaide was set to be a long one. A double header was on the cards and it was going to be a very humid day.

Long story short, we won both games and ended Adelaide's season just like they did to us last season. We won the back of great starting pitching as Aiden Francis took the win in game 1 throwing 8 innings giving up only 2 earned runs, while Vaughan Harris returned to his midsession form throwing 6 1/3 innings of shutout ball.

We've won 3 games, now only 5 more wins to go.

End of Regular Season Statistics

Since I'm a stat rat, I decided I had to post up my final stats of the regular season. Apart from my first outing against the Perth Heat, I feel like I had quite a successful season. I even made the top 5 in a few categories for relief pitchers. I led the league in strikeouts per 9 innings, 2nd in the league in opposing batting average, 4th in fewest walks per 9 innings and 3rd in walks/hits per 9 innings.

ABL Week 11 - vs Perth Heat

We had a crucial series against the Perth heat. It was important to win as many games as we could to ensure ourselves a play off spot.

Aiden Francis stayed at my place and we caught th train in the morning to the airport. Since we had to be at the airport at 6:45am we caught a 5:35am train. Wasn't very fun. Pretty sure I fell asleep on the train and was awoken by an old lady sneezing

I was lucky to have a spare seat next to me on the flight which was perfect so I caught up on some sleep. I slept for about 2 1/2 hours and when I woke up I started to watch the third Transformers movie, which in my opinion, is the strongest of the trilogy. A funny thing happened on the flight. Since I fell asleep before the plane took off I forgot to turn my iPhone to aero plane mode. About 10 minutes before landing I received a text message in the air. I thought it was quite funny, and the plane landed safely despite my phone not being on aero plane mode.

When we arrived at the hotel I took a nap and then went to meet up with one of my friends Rebecca. I only get to come to Perth once a year so I make sure I try and catch up with all my Perth friends.

Game 1
We went down 4-3. The game was ours to win but we made some bad mistakes at the wrong time that really hurt us. It was basic fundamental errors that ended up being the death of us in this game.

On day 2 in Perth I woke up pretty late so I just laid in bed for a while before deciding to go for a walk to the shops nearby as well as picking up some lunch.

Game 2
We came out on top 4-2 thanks to another one of our early offensive outbursts. We scored 4 runs in the top of the 1st and that was all we needed as Chris Oxspring delivered a quality start going 7 strong innings giving up only 2 runs. Tyler Collins led the offence going 3 for 4 but the big blow came from Alex Johnson in the 1st inning when he hit a bases clearing double to give us the 4-0 lead.

Day 3 in Perth I decided to be really lazy and just relax in bed watching movies. I got up once to go get lunch but as soon as I finished I was back in my room watching movies again.

Game 3
We've had plenty of heartbreaking losses during the season but this one seemed to hurt a little more seeing as we were so close to winning and clinching our postseason birth. Brad Thomas started and gave us 6 strong innings and gave up only 2 runs as he opposed another big leaguer, Virgil Vasquez who was equally impressive going 6 innings for 1 run. I came into the game in the 7th inning after our offense managed to tie the game up against Perth reliever Cameron Lamb. I went 3 innings giving up 1 hit and striking out 3. The hit I gave up was to Tim Kennelly and I can honestly say that is was the hardest ball ever hit off me. Personally, I was extremely happy with this outing because of how badly Perth beat me up when they came to Sydney at the start of the season. Tim Kennelly wasn't done with hard hitting balls as he made the final blow in the bottom of the 15th inning hitting a walk off home run to send the Perth fans home happy. During the game I noticed that were a group of softball girls cheering for us, I'm not sure if they were from Sydney but it's always nice to have a bit of support on the road. Also my friends Tenielle and Rebecca were at the game, and it was definitely nice to hear someone yell out "Go Todd!" when you're on the road.

Day 4 in Perth was quite enjoyable. Tenielle came and picked me up from the hotel and I went to her house to meet her puppy Freya, who is now my most favourite puppy of all time. After many attempts to try and get her into the pool, Freay only got her feet wet. Once we were done trying to get Freya to swim we went to pick up Rebecca before going to Hillary's Boat Harbour for lunch. It was a pretty good view for lunch, that's for sure.

Tenielle trying to get Freya into the pool

View from lunch

Game 4
Aiden Francis started and despite going 7 inning we were unable to score any runs to back him up as we were shut down by the Perth pitching staff. We went down 3-0 in what was a very frustrating game. Perth starter Warwick Saupold continued his good form and went 6 2/3 innings and didn't allow multilple base runners get on base in any inning.

Last day in Perth we were getting ready for a few possible scenarios. If results went our way and we beat Perth we would have finished the season in 2nd place and stayed in Perth for the next week. The other scenario was that results don't go our way and we end the season in 5th place and miss out on the playoffs. Luckily results did go our way and we found out we had made the playoffs before our game had begun. Now all we had to do was win to finish in 2nd place.

Game 5
Unfortunately, we didn't win and went down 7-2. We were never really in the game as Perth scored runs in the first 3 innings and our bats were kept silent once again by the Perth starting pitcher.

So, as the last week came to a close, Perth ran out with 1st place, while Melbourne finished in 2nd, only 1 game ahead of 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place. Safe to say, it was a pretty close season and the playoffs should deliver some great baseball.

Photo of the Day

This picture comes from our series against the Canberra Cavalry. Picture was taken moments before the benches cleared, safe to say Canberra and Sydney have a pretty fierce rivalry in the ABL.

Come at me bro!