Assistant coaches make very little. A lot of their commitment comes from the love of the game.
Coach Bongiovanni has been with the team for six years now. One of his favorite things to do is dragging the infield. In the video below, you will see him dragging a "sand-trap pattern" on the best field in Division III. As a college student, he spent his summers working the grounds at various local golf courses.
Week 2 of practice saw the pitchers throw bullpens. After their live action this past Saturday, pitching coach Matt Sullivan and myself have begun giving each player one thing to work on. Zach Jordan and Joey Tingue are working on their balance. Tommy Morris on changing speeds. A few on devloping change ups, etc.
Steven Ramsdell was the top strike-thrower from the weekend at 80 percent (24 of 30). Zach Murray got ahead of the hitters the best, tossing first-pitch strikes to 7 of 8 batters (87 percent). Morris tossed a low of 2.1 pitches per batter -- very efficient. These are the things that get pitchers deep into games.
The practice began with a lot of throwing. The best Around the Horn time was 29.90 (I can't recall the team that won -- I'm getting old). We then did about 100 double plays up the middle, while the corners and catchers did slow rollers and bunt rotations.
Coach Dlugosz and Bonge then worked on some front toss and hitting the other way. The ability to hit the other way allows the hitter to make productive outs (moving runners from second to third) and take away the outside pitch (most pitches are to the outer half of the plate).
We finished up with bunting. We did a poor job of executing the first round, but got better. Tommy Morris laid down the Golden Bunt and got he team out of conditioning.
We are looking to extend the pitchers more this weekend with intersquads on Friday and Saturday.
--CP
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