Tigers Minor League Baseball Blog

For those of you readers wondering what occurs during a teams’ warm-up session/batting practice I am going to give you an inside look at we players do to prepare for a game. In the morning to mentally prepare before even going to the park I will get plenty of sleep, usually 10-12 hours worth, but the last two are just laying in bed trying my hardest to fall back asleep and thus justifying that it will help me be more awake for the game that night. Then to get in the sporting mood, watch Sportscenter until I can almost repeat every witty little side comment the anchors say. Once I have completed my mental preparation, I then make sure I get proper nutrition to perform at a high level. Refer to my previous post on eating on the road to learn more about this topic. After a brief bus ride and a slight feeling of disappointment because I forgot to charge my iPod and have nothing to keep me occupied for the three-minute ride to the park. So I get ready, put on my uniform, and then play 30 minutes of card games. After complaining about our stretching routine, which by the way happens every day, my fellow pitchers and I get our arms loose for batting practice to see who can do the most amazing thing involving throwing the ball into the bucket. Also included in our warm up cantor is some form of bargaining with the coaches to let us take batting practice. But, the most amazing thing usually comes from the pitchers who hit ground balls to the infielders. These are players (myself included) who still think that by some twist of fate one of the coaches will see us and say, “Man he swings a good fungo, maybe he should try to hit.” Then once the session is over you hope one of the fielders will compliment you on your mediocre, ground ball hitting skills so that you feel a small sense of minor accomplishment during BP. After all is said and done I head back into the clubhouse, have an overpriced burger from the concession stand and put on my game face.