UPDATED: Salem CC baseball facing final prep for Monday’s season opener without ever having gotten out on the field


By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News


CARNEYS POINT – John Holt was talking with Bryant & Stratton coach Paul Bottigliero the other day about their Opening Day doubleheader in balmy (compared to here) Virginia Beach when the conversation turned to the most pressing issue of the preseason. 

Holt was lamenting “without a doubt the worst” preseason weather woes he’s seen in 30 years of coaching when the Bobcats’ coach dropped the biggest truth bomb.

“He said it’s just God reminding us that baseball needs to be played during baseball season,” Holt said.

The winter has been particularly harsh on Holt’s Salem CC ballclub. The Mighty Oaks open their season Monday before jumping right into demanding Region 19 play 10 days later with the real possibility of playing their first game without having gotten outside to practice. The Bobcats, meanwhile, will have 11 games in by the time they play Salem.

All you have to do is look out the window to see the problem. The remnants of the biggest snowstorm in a decade two weeks ago are still covering the ground. The roads are clear, but grassy surfaces remain blanketed by the white stuff.

“It’s gonna be tough to get on a baseball field somewhere,” Holt said. “If anything I think we’re gonna look maybe to at least get some work outside in a parking lot or something along those lines.”

They tried to get outside Monday, renting space at the artificial-turfed MSI Sports Complex in Upper Chichester – where they moved last year’s season opener – but work crews hadn’t finished plowing the grounds and the Mighty Oaks had to cancel the session. They’ve even set up a full field behind the snack stand at the Carneys Point Rec Complex where they play, and it dries well back Holt says, but it still has to.

“The last couple years we’ve been fortunate enough to run into 40-, 50-degree days in January and we were able to get outside on those,” Holt said. “In 30 years of doing this, this is without a doubt the worst weather ever to where it’s snowed two weeks ago and we still have that snow on the ground. It’s not supposed to happen.”

They’ve been doing live drills in the fieldhouse with pitchers and hitters, but it’s the fielders who suffer the most. No ground balls on the infield or timing on double plays and no fly-ball reads for the outfielders.

“I’ve talked to the guys and they’re stressing pretty hard about it,” Holt said. “They’ve caught a thousand ground balls and a thousand fly balls in their lifetime and all I’m looking for is them to just keep routine routine.

“We do kind of preach that throughout the entire year, but if we can just keep the routine plays routine … I’m going to expect mistakes and we’re going to expect our defense to maybe be where I think it should be, but I do think as a whole we’re a better defensive team than what we were last year so I’m not worried, but then against doing walk-throughs in the gym doesn’t exactly give you what you need for outside.”

First baseman-pitcher Tyler Hacker said the biggest hurdle to playing without being outside is “getting the feel again.”

“We have our fall season, it’s all outside, and when we come back for spring we expect to be playing outside and get true hops and all that kind of stuff,” he said. “It’s difficult to kind of feel that you’re playing your sport outside free, so it’s definitely more of a mind game than a physical thing and I’d say we’ve adjusted well. We’ve done everything we can do to be inside and we learned how to adapt, as we should.

“There’s obviously going to be some roughs, as there is for every first game, just a different kind. We’ve done live ABs, but we haven’t fielded the live ABs in a while, so I think it’ll be a little rough through there, but it shouldn’t take long.”

For one of the newest Mighty Oaks players, this snow business is a play out of left field. Outfielder Cliff Wysinger is a redshirt freshman from McDonough, Ga., who transferred from Auburn-Montgomery and said what the Mighty Oaks are experiencing is “very different” for him. He said his biggest adjustment to not having been outside is gauging whatever wind they’ll encounter on the trip.

“It’s definitely a concern, but I do think we are ready to play,” he said. “I really don’t have any concern. Coach Holt made a good statement saying we’ve done it a thousand times before, what’s one more time. I think we’re prepared as a team. I think we’ll put up some really good runs as an offense. As a defense, we’ll have our mistakes or whatever, but as long as it’s not big mistakes I think we’ll be good.

“It’s definitely a first time for me. We’re usually on the field by now. It’s very different not being outside and I’m hearing this is like one of the worst winters. It’s definitely different for everybody, but we all played the game. We just got to go out there and compete.”

The weather woes aside, it’s still a little early for Holt to commit to an Opening Day lineup and a pitching rotation for the doubleheader is still “up in the air.” Fortunately, he has a lot of options in both areas.

“I’ve got a lot of good problems this year and one of the main purposes of the Bryant & Stratton series is to give those guys the opportunity to prove who’s going to be that nine,” Holt said. “For me it’s let’s see what we get in these two games and give guys opportunities.

“I would have liked to have had a couple more non-conference (games) before we jump into Ocean, a must-win situation, but I think they’ll have enough opportunity with Bryant Stratton to kind of reassure me what I’m thinking, but I’m going to use (the doubleheader) to figure out who those nine are going to be.”