By Faraz Majid
<[email protected]>

Even though the men’s baseball season doesn’t officially begin until spring, according to Head Coach Eric Lentz, the team usually starts before that. Way before.

This unseen work starts farther in advance then most would think. In fact, Mr. Lentz said the team usually starts its conditioning the week after fall break, because the formal training period in the spring isn’t nearly long enough.

“Between when we select our teams and start our games is about a window of about a week,” Mr. Lentz said.  “This means that most of the team’s pre-season is committed to its practices and in-season is committed to games.”

Catcher and senior Alex Lentz confirms that he has been part of this lengthy off-season practice routine.

“First we practice two days a week in the off-season,”  he said via e-mail. “The first practice of the week is done in groups at the Round Tripper (a facility for baseball where there are batting cages and an indoor field) where we practice hitting, throwing, fielding and do different types of drills.”

According to Lentz, the second practice is conducted in the school gym where players run bases and work on mostly conditioning drills.

Once spring arrives, the team ramps up its routine. “In the spring we start practicing five days a week for about two hours a day,” Alex said. “We do all types of stuff during practice from infield and outfield practice to hitting, and sometimes we have inner squad scrimmages between the varsity and junior varsity teams.”

Mr. Lentz said the coaches come up with their plans for practices such as the one Alex mentioned. “Generally we have practice plans in place of terms of what we need to improve in practice.”

Once the season begins, the players must be ready for an intense workload, according to Mr. Lentz. “We play as many as five or six games a week,” he said. “The team’s practices are usually from 3:45 to 6 p.m.”

There is much preparation that goes on close to game time.  Before each game, Mr. Lentz said that to get physically prepared, the members of the team take time to just get their arms and legs loose.

Also, if it is a home game, they will go out and have batting practice until 4:15 p.m., after which they will stretch and throw a little bit.

As for his personal warm-up routine, Alex said, “When I warm up I like to make sure my arm is loose and ready to throw because it is important for the catcher to throw the ball at all times.”

However, Mr. Lentz said the mental preparation is a much more essential part of being ready for a game than the physical preparation.

Alex said, “The coaches will talk to us before the game in the dugout to get us prepared for the game. (The coaches) could either be intense or humorous depending on the opponent and how we played during our last game and practices.”

“It is more mental than emotional,” Mr. Lentz said. “It’s not like we give a big rah-rah speech. Just keep your emotions in and play within yourself.”