Speaking English

The Minnesota Twins are widely known for going all around the world to find the next superstar. We have players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuala, Australia, South Africa, Czech Republic, Germany, The Netherlands, Russia, Taiwan, Korea and Canada. So sometimes it may be hard to communicate with your team mates.


There are a few latin players that speak good english, some that speak a little bit, and most of them have no idea what we are saying, same way I have no idea what they are saying to me when they speak spanish. Like most languages you learn, you usually get taught the swear words, so I guess you could say I'm fluent in spanish curse words. Every once in a while I may try and talk to a latino and try and learn some spanish phrases, but as fast as I learn it, is as quick as I forget it. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, an english class is run at the hotel for all latin players to attend.


A funny situation we have here is Hung-Yi Chen and Markus Solbach rooming together, Chen is from Taiwan and Markus is from Germany. I find this funny because I couldn't imagine the conversations these two would have in their room everyday. While Markus speaks good english, he also has a slight accent, and Chen speaks very limited english. Chen refers to Markus as his english teacher. I try to speak to Chen as often as I can and teach him many baseball sayings, and its fun talking with him because he is very eager to learn.


During the offseason I played with the Sydney Blue Sox in the new Australian Baseball League, and I was privileged to be part of a bullpen that included Koo Dae-Sung, who is a baseball legend in Korea. For people that are unfamiliar with his legendary status, he is the all time saves leader in the Korean Major Leagues, and also in In 1996, he won both a Gold Glove Award and the MVP of the Korean Major Leagues with a 1.88 ERA, 18 wins, 24 saves and 183 strikeouts in 139 innings pitched. He had a wealth of knowledge of the game, but one thing we always said amongst ourselves while watching him play and workout was, "I wish he could speak english". I'm sure we would of been overwhelmed with information he would provide us with.


Coaches always tell the international players that learning english is very important to their development as a professional baseball player. They say this because the players that can speak english are more coachable, and this will help them move up to the next level quicker.

                                        Hung Yi-Chen and Markus Solbach

Early Days

Down here in Extended Spring, we have over 50 players, which is enough to make two teams. But seeing as we only play one game a day, not all 50 players will be in the game. Every second day, our team goes on the road to play the Orioles, Rays or Red Sox, so that means that about 30 players will get to stay back at the complex and work out instead of going on the road. Seeing as we don't have a game to play, we are usually done at the field before midday, which gets a lot of people excited.

When we get these early days at the field, I usually like to just go back to my room and relax, watch a movie or go for a swim in the pool. This is the best time to just sit back and enjoy the extra time off, seeing as these early days don't come around too often for players. Since Extended Spring has started, I've had 3 early days, on many occasions I have had to pitch in a road game, and also been sent to just chart the game on the road.

Guys with cars will usually go run some errands with the extra time they have, or even skip lunch at the field and go somewhere else to have a more enjoyable meal.

As I write this entry, my room mate Jacob Younis still isn't back from the road trip to Sarasota where he played the Orioles, I have been in my room since 12:45pm today. So I have had an extra 4 hours to relax, which I use to its full advantage.

Slumps and Streaks

In all sports, players go through slumps and streaks. It's hard to explain one single thing that may cause these streaks and slumps, but the only thing you can do is keep working hard, don't cheat yourself and hopefully the sporting gods will take care of you and repay you for all the hard work you put in.


I can honestly say right now, I am going through a bit of a cold streak but it's not quite a slump. During Spring Training I threw 7 innings, 1 hit, 1 run, 1 walk and struck out 12. The one hit I gave up was a solo home run. So everything ran smoothly for me in Spring Training. I kept doing the same routine everyday, hoping I could keep repeating every performance. But in Extended Spring Training now, I have thrown 10 2/3 innings, 12 hits, 6 runs, 4 walks and struck out 16. I have done all my routines the same, but the results have been different. All I can do is work harder in my bullpen sessions, put in while I'm in the gym, and make things turn around in my favour.


There is a difference between a slump and a cold streak, a cold streak is usually a lack of production over a small period of time, such as a hitter going 0 for 12 over 3 or 4 games. when a player starts to buy into their cold streak, then this may turn into a slump. A slump is when a hitter hits .100 in a month. Slumping can cause a player to change their own workouts, and they start to press. This pressing can lead to behavior that sometimes borders on maniacal. A player in a slump can often be found asking anyone and everyone what they are doing wrong. Just recently I was speaking with another pitcher here asking how I could improve my curveball since mine has lost a bit of bite to it. There is one good thing about slumps, they are great teachers. No player can avoid a slump. Slumps allow a player to learn more about their own mechanics or just themselves so in the future they will know what to look or feel for when things aren’t feeling just quite right. 


The behavior that accompanies a hot streak can be very similar to slump behavior because superstitions can start to pile up. When a guy gets hot or has a hitting streak going, or a pitcher has a scoreless innings streak, sometimes he begins to attribute his success to things that have nothing to do with it, like a pair of lucky socks or oddball routines, or wearing the same underwear. It can get pretty hilarious what people come up with as superstitions as you can see from my blog entry 'Superstitions and Habits'. I'm one person that is very guilty of following the same pre game routine if I had a successful outing with that routine. 


While on a cold streak, it may look like the entire field is a big glove, but while on a hot streak, the ball may look like the size of a watermelon. 

Australian Sports

While living in America for 6 months is pretty awesome, there's still one thing missing that would make living here absolutely perfect, that is being able to watch all the Australian sports back home. I am a big Brisbane Broncos fan, have been ever since I was 9, and I find myself waking up a little earlier on weekends, just to log on to NRL.com and watch the live play by plays, and also listen to the games live online.

Just today I woke up at 6:30am to listen to the Broncos vs Tigers game online, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that my Broncos were winning 25-6 at half time. But as I started listening to the game, things began to get more intense, as the Tigers scored 2 tries in the space of 10 minutes. It took every ounce of energy within me to not want to yell at my computer as my room mate Jacob was still asleep. Jacob woke up not too long after, and I sat in my bed all tensed up for the next 20 minutes until Darren Lockyer scored for the Broncos, when he scored I started clapping and fist pumping, Jacob asked me what was going on, and I just told him "Lockyer scored". Corey Parker converted to put the Broncos up 31-18, after that I relaxed and started to get ready for my day.

Last week when the Broncos played the Roosters, I skype called my mum, and she faced her computer towards the television at home. I was able to watch the last 5 minutes of the game, which was really fun, made me feel like I was in my lounge room for a little while.

Next week the Broncos play the Bulldogs, who is Jacob's favourite team, and I have no doubt he will be waking up early with me to listen to the game. Might be a few tense moments in the room that morning.

Superstitions and Habits

In many sports, athletes would have their own superstitions or habits they following before a game or during a game, and if you ask any baseball player, they will tell you they have a routine they follow. There are some basic unwritten rules that many players follow, just because they feel it may give them bad luck if they break them, such as not stepping on the foul lines, and not running over the pitcher's mound on the way back to the dugout.

Adam O'Neill is an Australian pitcher with the New York Mets, and he jumps over the foul lines on his way to and from the mound. Also before every game, he likes to put the headphones in and listen to a bit of Eminem.

Jarryd Sullivan who is with the Pittsburgh Pirates, makes sure he puts his left sock on and left cleat on first all the time before he goes out on the field for the day. While he's taking his warm up pitches before the start of each inning, he throw's his 8 pitches in a specific sequence that he always follows. That is 2 fastballs, 2 changeups, 2 curveballs then back to 2 fastballs.

My room mate Jacob Younis, waits until he gets out of the dugout before putting his helmet on, and has his batting gloves undone until he gets up the batters box, he then tightens them up, and as he gets into the box he draws a cross on the plate before facing the pitcher. He does this routine for every pitch, he will step out of the batters box, undo his batting gloves, retighten them and get back in the box and draws the cross on the plate.

Mark Trau likes to clean the plate before the start of every inning, and also by habit, he hitches his belt in between every pitch.

Tyler Herr who has already made an appearance in my United Nations blog, likes to read a book on nights before he knows he will be pitching. He also has a specific hat, glove and pair of cleats he uses on game day.

Kelvin Silvania, who is a 1st basemen with the Twins, likes to hit off the tee every morning in the batting cages and while he walks up to the batters box in games, he holds his cup (protector/box, whatever you want to call  it) and does a 'funky leg kick' as he liked to explain it.

I could write a book on all my superstitions and routines that I follow, but I will only write about a few of them. In the dugout in between innings, my glove and hat always sit to the left of me, with my hat sitting on top of my glove. When I go out to the mound in to start an inning, I put my hat on first, carry my glove in my right hand, then start to walk to the mound, when I get half way between the dugout and foul line I start to jog out, once I get to the foul line, I take a big leap over it, I put my glove onto my left hand, then start to walk over to pick up the ball. I only pick up the baseball on the 3rd base side of the mound, sometimes I will have to kick the ball over from the first base side, or if the ball is on the mound, I ask a position player to kick the ball off the mound for me. While playing for the Ryde-Eastwood Hawks in Sydney, my 3rd and 1st basemen have been asked multiple times to please kick the ball off the mound for me.

If you ask all of us why we do this, we may not have a reason for you, it's just what a wacky routine that we have gotten into over time, and some people think its why they may be successful on that day.

Bus Rides

In the Major Leagues they travel everywhere on private charter flights, but down here in the Minor Leagues, we travel by bus. For us here in Extended Spring Training, our longest bus ride is only 90 minutes to Sarasota, which is where the Baltimore Orioles complex is and the shortest one being a 15 minute ride across town to the Boston Red Sox complex.

As you move up in the minors, these bus rides getting longer and longer. In many leagues the bus ride can be as long as 14 hours, and these trips are made right after you finish a night game, to make sure you're in the new town the next day to play another night game. I haven't yet experienced one of these long bus rides, but I couldn't imagine they would be much fun.

Firstly, there aren't assigned seats on the bus, everyone can choose to sit where they want, but everyone usually sits in the same seats nearly every time they get on the bus. Also, the seating is fairly segregated, with latin players usually taking up the back of the bus, and the American and other foreign players taking up the front of the bus. This may seems ugly and people may think that us and the latinos don't get along, but its just a case of wanting to sit with people who you can easily communicate with.


People usually tend to do the same things on every bus ride. Since our bus has Wi-Fi, I sit on Facebook for a little while and chat to people back home in Sydney before I put the headphones in, listen to music and hopefully have a quick nap before the ride is over. A few guys like to chat amongst themselves, and usually respect the other players who like to sleep by keeping the volume of their conversation to a minimum. Every once in a while we will travel on a bus that has tables in it, and you may see a deck of cards come out and guys would play any sort of card game for the entire trip. Also some of the guys just like to listen to their music and keep to themselves.

On bus rides when a lot of players have to go, and some people have to share seats, the starting pitcher for the day will usually have a seat to his own. There are some techniques you can use to get your own seat if you aren't the starting pitcher, one of this is to get on the bus early, and pretend to be asleep. This is pretty effective because no one likes to be 'that guy' who wakes up people that are asleep on the bus. Another one that works is having a whole bunch of stuff on the seat next to you, and once the bus starts moving, you move it all and stretch out.

You must beware if you fall asleep on the bus, as you may be prone to some pranks, such as finding an embarassing photo of yourself on Facebook when you get back to your hotel room that day. This happened today on the bus as one player was taking a seat next to players who were asleep, and was posing with them while another player took a photo. It's all in good fun though, as boys will be boys.

              A familiar scene on the bus, players trying to sleep in very awkward positions.

Duties

In every professional organization, duties need to be done in every single game. at the Twins we have a pitching chart, a game chart and velocity chart. Each one of these charts is completed by a pitcher who is not pitching on that day. Other duties that need to be done are bat and ball boy, an honour that I've have had bestowed on me twice in the last 4 days, and also someone will be using a video camera during the game.

The pitching chart is used to document our pitchers for the game. Such things that are recorded on this chart are, balls and strikes, what type of pitches were thrown, the location of pitches in an at bat and how the hitter got on base or out. Once you get the hang of it, the pitching chart can be very easy, and very valuable to any pitcher who has the time to study opposing teams lineups. The pitching chart is usually done by the starting pitcher for the next day, so he can get a look at the team he will be facing the next day.

The game chart is much simpler then the pitching chart, and is used to document our hitters for the game. It is almost like doing a regular scorebook. We write down what the hitter did and what the count was they got on base or out. At the end of the game we have enough information to complete an entire box score on our own hitters.

The velocity chart is pretty self explanatory, it just records the velocity of every pitch thrown. People are more interested in this chart then the others, because everyone likes to know how hard they are throwing and whether their velocity is improving.

The least glamourous of these duties is being bat and ball boy. Basically, all you do is run back and forth from home plate all game, picking up bats, foul balls that go towards the back net, and give the umpire new baseballs when he is running low. Also on occasion I would run the umpire a cup of water in between innings, since they are also working hard back there, and if we want them to be at their best, they need to be hydrated as well.

The last duty that needs to performed is having someone on the video camera, the video recorded with the camera is used to see if the pitcher has any flaws in their mechanics, and if the pitching coach notices anything wrong, he would sit you down and show you what is going wrong, or work with you in your next bullpen session.

To someone who doesn't know much about baseball or a fan, these duties may seem very small in terms of playing baseball, but they are an important part of what makes the team, and an individual successful in professional baseball.