June 11, 2009
TEMPE, Ariz. - Greetings from Omaha!
We started our day off extremely tired from the previous day. We didn't arrive into our hotel until 2:00 a.m. and had to wake up at 8:30 a.m. Fortunately, we are experiencing this wonderful opportunity, so everyone was ready to get our day started. After breakfast we headed to Westside High School and we went through a normal practice. We had about 50 people there watching us, which was pretty cool. You don't really expect a crowd for a practice session. We finished up our practice and signed some autographs for the kids that were there. Then we headed back to the hotel for a much needed break, and we had some time to take a nap and catch up on sleep. Around 4, our hitters went to take batting practice at a local baseball academy. I, along with a couple of our other pitchers, went along as well just to get out of the hotel for a bit. We were greeted by about 60 people wanting autographs and wanting to talk with us. There were a couple cameras there that were getting some shots of our BP. While the position players were hitting, the other pitchers and I were reliving our glory days of when we played in the field by taking ground balls from each other. The funny thing was one of the camera guys came by me and was getting some tape of me while I was hitting some ground balls (he probably thought I was one of the everyday position players)!!! After that it was dinner at Piccolo's. We got some entertainment from our very own Randy Policar singing "Sweet Caroline" and "Somebody to Love." It was great. Before packing it in for the night we got some new gear - cleats, uniform, polo shirt, etc. It was like Christmas morning in June. As a team we know what we are here to do and we are focused on the task. We are excited to get this underway!
Until next time, GO DEVILS! Jason "Frenchy" Franzblau #56