The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
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'Boys of summer' ready for spring
After indoor practice, Hornets ready to get outside
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: March 22, 2007
Everybody wants nicer weather as spring approaches.
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But the Saline baseball team might want it a little more than most.
The Hornets opened their 2007 season with their first official practice March 12. But until the team's fields have dried out and home plate is more than a mud pit, practice will be held in the Saline gymnasium and occasionally, as weather permits, on the turf of Saline High School Stadium.
"The problem isn't the first week. Coaches are OK with it, and the kids don't mind at first," Saline head coach Scott Thiesen said at the end of the Hornets' first week of practice. "But the second week, the kids can get antsy. After a while, we need to get outside. But right now, we're OK."
The problems with remaining indoors, Thiesen said, are the fairly obvious ones: The Hornets cannot take full, live batting practice or work on fly balls higher than the gym ceiling or all the "live game stuff" that makes up baseball, Thiesen said.
Another complication is that the Michigan High School Athletic Association has trimmed the number of weeks state baseball teams have to practice by a week in 2007.
But that hardly means the team isn't accomplishing anything as it approaches its April 9 season-opener. Indoor batting cages, wood platform pitching mounds, and batting practice with soft "ragballs" mean that the Hornets can still work through much of the basics of baseball practice.
Thiesen says the time is an important opportunity for both team-building and honing specific skills, as well.
"In some ways, it's a positive, particularly because it gives us a chance to focus on our skills and techniques," Thiesen said. "We can work on double play turns, pivots, pitchers covering first … we have a lot of them and we can use this time to teach them."
In an effort to put those honed skills to work as soon as possible, the team also will be traveling on its fifth annual pre-season trip to Nashville, Tenn., for its first full-field work.
"It helps to get out into warm weather," Thiesen said.
And however hamstrung the first weeks of practice might be, that practice is much better, Thiesen said, than no practice at all.
"The kids are excited, the coaches are excited … we've got a lot of energy and enthusiasm," Thiesen said. "During the off-season, we can't have more than three kids together at a time. To have the whole team practicing together … when we have a warm day and we'll all get out, that's awesome."
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