A Spring Training Perspective, News (Terriers Baseball)

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Apr 07, 2016 | Dan Thompson | 455 views
A Spring Training Perspective
The Terriers organization enjoyed another incredible Spring Training foray into South Florida last month and came away from it raring to go and hit the diamond at home. After a direct flight to Fort Lauderdale, the players quickly settled in the Hawthorne Suites hotel and got ready to hit the practice fields at the former Montreal Expos Spring Training complex in Santaluces.

As is The Terrier Way, the coaches made sure that different teams worked together to allow more experienced players to work with and alongside their younger organizational teammates. And once the games began, the same applied where some younger players had the chance to experience play on the older teams when opportunities permitted. The Florida trip allows players the opportunity to put into action the skills they have been working on all winter. The “rust” gets knocked off; fly balls are up in the sky and game situations are no longer just situations. The boys, as usual were great ambassadors of The Terrier Way and also for Canadian baseball in general. Organizers went out of their way to compliment us on how the players carried themselves both on and off the field and it is clear that the Terrier coaches have a lot to do with that overall impression and culture which makes us all proud to be a part of the team. There were many great individual and team performances played out in the hot Florida sun and the memories of the trip will stick in the minds of both players and families long enough to get us through what has opened up as a rough weather start to the month of April. But before you know it, we’ll be out on the artificial turf of our one-of-a kind facility at KC, getting the reps in and putting some flow back into the game we all love. On a side note, 18U Terrier catcher Joe Tevlin had the opportunity to travel to Arizona after the Terrier trip to play some more ball. There he joined a Langley Blaze/ Diamondbacks Scout team coached by Doug Mathieson for a junket of Spring Training games primarily against MLB Minor League A/AA teams. Joe’s summary of that experience was “in Florida we played against teams that showed us where we stood and we got a chance to get some kinks out. In Phoenix, the opportunity is to see where we hope to get to in the future”. Plenty of high nineties fastballs and the game just being played bigger, faster and stronger was a great experience for Joe. Congrats to Joe for showing his stuff in that setting.