We have been very fortunate to live in the city where my son attends school, and this has brought many wonderful experiences, and also to monitor and intervene with injuries.
DII teams play many double headers, and all of our conference series has one double header associated with it, so these teams find themselves using 2 catchers pretty routinely to carry the load. Looking back over 17’s college experience, each year was a different combination at the catcher position. So with each year I will reflect a bit on the season experience.
FRESHMAN 2010: As any freshman parent and player can attest to, we were so excited this year. Both catchers that carried most of the load in 2009 were no longer there, and the position was wide open for competition. 17 got his opportunity to show what he could offer early in pre-conference play, getting 12 starts and doing fairly well. Adjusting to the hitting at this level was the toughest part. He experienced a mild concussion from a foul ball to the mask, and this set him back for about 3 weeks. The training staff did a great job monitoring the concussion and it was a slow return.
So when they entered conference play in the Sunshine SLIDER Conference, 17 was relegated to what wife and I affectionately called the “Sandwich Inning Catcher”. The sandwich inning catcher is that heralded position of catcher for that last inning of the first Saturday game, when the starting catcher is eating his sub sandwich. 17 got 38 AB’s that freshman year, and it was good foundation watching and learning. He got to watch a future 14th round White Sox draftee play through the grueling heat and grind of 24 innings in 24 hours, which was in 17’s future.
SOPHOMORE 2011: 17 was slated to catch 2 out of 3 games on the weekend this season, except for the “flu experience” period. The flu experience period began on a Friday in preconference play. 17 came down with severe flu and the other catcher had the series of the year. A 10 for 14 (.714) type of series, so 17 patiently took the 1 out of 3 games slot until he earned his spot back a few weeks later. The relationship 17 had with this senior catcher was awesome, as well as our relationship with his parents. We looked forward to each series and both sets of parents supported each other’s kid. 17 sprained his ankle in the final contest and the other catcher played the last innings of his college career then. This fine Student-Athlete went on to be drafted and signed with the Rays that season.
JUNIOR 2012: The year of the lower back pain. 17 hurt his lower back lifting pre-season and was out the first 10 games. We intervened and got him to a specialist who did all the rehab and worked really close with the college trainer. It helps that his doctor was a former athlete and took a proactive approach with the trainer. When he got back on the field he shared time with the other catcher, but really never got back in a hitting groove, finishing with a .238 average in 80 AB’s. 17 was very happy to have had a great summer wood bat experience to raise his confidence and get back to normal.
SENIOR 2012: We are in this as I type, but there is this thing called Karma….
I can say that being close to the school, and having 17 live at home has allowed us to be very intimate with his college experience. 17 is very mature now and going away for the summer to play has been great for his “alone” time. He is a great cook/baker, knows how to fish and do laundry, and he recently asked his high school sweetheart the big question and is engaged to be married a year from this December. He will graduate on time Cum Laude with a Business Management degree in May, so yes he and we as parents can say “baseball has been very good to me.”