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| Had my buddy Anthony Bennett in town for a game as we got back to work this week at Tempo. |
Most baseball leagues across the continent will take anywhere from 3-6 weeks off between their regular season and postseason, a gap I think is a bit ridiculous for three reasons; teams lose momentum gained throughout the four-month regular season; play is sloppy early in the playoffs as teams work themselves back in game shape; and the best time of the year for baseball, weather-wise, is wasted.
That being said, I gave our guys two weeks off, and we started back this week with a four-day training camp in the mornings as well as single games on Tuesday and Thursday here in Prague and a doubleheader on Saturday in Bratislava, Slovakia. The first week away from the club was much-needed ... they needed to get away from me as much as I needed to get away from them. But the second week, I was itching to get back at it, and sat around most of the time playing with practice plans, figuring out our pitching rotation, and pretty much doing everything than I should have been doing during my time off, which is relaxing.
The training camp, in my opinion, was a huge success. Our junior (16-18 year old) players, whose commitment I've openly questioned since I arrived in the Czech Republic, was fantastic. First guys to practice, sprinting everywhere, doing everything that was asked of them, they were like a completely different group than I had come to know.
One player in particular, an outfielder named Pavel, went from buried on the bench because of his lack of attendance at practices (most guys here are at about 90 percent attendance; some guys unfortunately don't approach that number) to in a position now with a few players unavailable to travel with us this weekend where he'll be starting in center field in our game against the Hungarian national team. For a young guy, what a great opportunity.
If any of you junior guys are reading this, I hope you keep the same work ethic you've demonstrated this week for the remainder of the season.
On Tuesday, we welcomed Anthony Bennett, a good buddy of mine from Hungary who is now coaching the Robur '58 club in Holland. As everyone around the baseball community knows, baseball in Holland is as good as it gets in Europe, and the Netherlands hangs with the big boys worldwide as well (they won the Baseball World Cup last year). Those guys did not disappoint, coming into to our yard and proving to be everything you'd expect from a club from over there; fundamentally-sound, talented and chalked full of guys who know how to compete. We ended up making a late run to make the final score 10-8, but they beat us up pretty good for the most part and were an example of what kind of club we're striving to become. Anthony, to no surprise of mine, has done a great job in his first year with the team.
On Thursday, we traveled across town to take on the A team from KRC Eagles Praha, which finished third in the regular season in the ExtraLeague, which we are seeking a return to after three seasons spent in the Českomoravská liga, the second-division here in Czech. Our guys set the tone early and we jumped to a 4-0 lead, but the big inning was our undoing, as they touched us up for six runs in the fourth and coasted to a 13-6 win. The score might not indicate it, but I thought we looked like a different team from the one that took a 14-3 loss to the Eagles in our first game of the season in their tournament back in March. Our guys were more confident at the plate, attacking fastballs early, and even when they had scored eight unanswered runs against us after our initial lead, we answered with two runs and had the game at 8-6 in the sixth. Earlier this season, we may have folded up shop in that situation.
This weekend, we'll conclude our week back on the field with games in Bratislava against one of their local clubs, Apollo Bratislava, as well as a game against the national team from Hungary, which is coached by another American buddy of mine, Justin Prinstein. Two more good tests as we look to face as many quality teams and as much good pitching in "friendly" games as we can before our first game in the Českomoravská liga semifinals on September 8.
It feels good to be back on the field, and everyone's batteries seem to be recharged for the last, most-important leg what will be a nine-and-a-half month season for our guys by the time we wrap up in October.