Monks junior pitcher Andrew Pooler
(Somesville, ME) wrote this journal of his daily activities during
the St. Joe's baseball team trip to Washington DC and Maryland March
19-23. Although the Monks didn't fare as well as they had hoped in
the win's column, they certainly enjoyed their time on the trip and
gained plenty in the team chemistry department.
Day One, Travel Day
Today was a very long day traveling from school to Washington D.C.
We left school on a coach bus at 1:00 PM after our classes finished
and arrived 10 hours later at our hotel in downtown D.C. Most of the
bus ride was spent watching 
movies
and many “The Office” and “Seinfeld” episodes.
Lots of comic relief was provided from these shows, which made the
trip go by a bit quicker. We also had a few laughs at assistant coach
Nick Mirabello's expense. After nearly every stop on the trip someone
managed to snag his beloved neck pillow and hide it on him. Coach
McCarthy started the prank and received most of the blame, but the
players picked up on Coach Mirabello's aggravation level and brought
it to a new level. It grew to the point where "Alright' where's
my neck pillow?!?!" was the most commonly heard question on the
trip!
About half way through the trip the guys started to fall asleep and
make their way into the isle to lie down. Trust me it wasn’t
very comfortable, but it got the job done. We finally arrived at our
hotel I checked into my room around 2:00 AM along with sophomore Pat
Moran and freshmen Mason Roberge and Matt Mullen. It didn’t
take long for all of us to crash. We have a key double header against
Catholic University tomorrow.
Day Two, Game Day
We started our day off with a team breakfast provided by the
hotel before we left for the ball park. Once we finished up, all the
players filed up to their rooms and got changed. We had about an hour
to kill before departure, so I used that time to check my email and
phone messages before throwing on my game stuff.
The
bus ride to the ballpark turned out to be a bit of an adventure. It
started out with all the players getting mentally prepared for the
games by listing to their iPods and receiving good luck phone calls
and text messages from family and girlfriends, but later turned into
40 players and coaches chanting the bus driver’s name. Being
the professional he is, Gary, our bus driver, didn’t panic as
he put the vehicle in reverse and backed down about 80 yards downhill
with cars on each side of the street. Once we made it out the bus
went in to hysterics and the “Gary, Gary, Gary” chant
erupted. Not a bad way to loosen the tension before a doubleheader!
The first game didn’t go as planned and we ended up losing 7-6
in extra innings. The second game, however, went well as freshman
pitcher Mason Roberge picked up his first college victory after he
pitched 5 plus innings. Another freshman, first basemen Ryan Murphy,
charged the Monks offensively by going 2-3 with 2 clutch RBIs in the
top of the seventh. Junior outfielder and leadoff hitter Wade Oliver
provided his usual spark with 2 hits and a RBI of his own.
Since there wasn’t a team dinner tonight, Oliver, Steve Gorsun,
Sean O’Brien and I went out to eat together. We picked a little
Chinese restaurant where some of the other players were and we spent
the dinner cracking jokes and checking NCAA basketball tournament
scores. Once dinner was over with we all went back to our rooms to
catch up on some sleep and watch the Celtics beat up on the Dallas
Mavericks.
Day Three, Tour of D.C.
Today was a fun day for the team as we spent some time on our day
off touring some of the sights in Washington D.C. The bus dropped
us off at the Washington Monument where we spent some our time snapping
pictures and gazing at the White House. Once we were done there, the
Royal Blue made their way down through the WWII Memorial to the Lincoln
Memorial.
It
had been a long time since I visited D.C. so seeing everything again
was great and enjoying it with my teammates was really special. Next,
some of us decided to take a break and grab some food, so we headed
through the Korean Memorial over to the snack shack. A lot of us we’re
getting some weird looks and we couldn’t figure it out until
a man driving by us stopped, rolled down his window and wished us
good luck against Oklahoma. It definitely caught all of us off guard,
but being the nice guys we are, we waved and said thank you and we
appreciate it. We all got a huge laugh out of this because we learned
later on that the Division I St. Joe’s basketball team was in
D.C. playing Oklahoma for their first round game in the NCAA Tournament.
These good luck wishes were passed on about 5 more times during the
day, and trust me, it didn’t get old!
We only had a few hours to take in the sights, so we took it all in
and headed on back to the bus that took us to an early team dinner
at a great Italian Restaurant before we traveled to our next hotel
in Salisbury, Maryland. The team dinner was awesome, and the food
was unbelievable. The waiters kept coming with more food every minute
and it was amazing. It was quite a sight to see: 40 college baseball
players taking up half a restaurant eating like they haven’t
eaten in days. Once dinner was over we loaded back onto the bus and
headed to our next hotel a few hours away.
We arrived in Salisbury later that night and after we checked into
our rooms of four, Gorsun, Burdin, Nanof, Hebenstreit and I went to
grab a bite to eat at the Applebee's next door. We had a little fun
in there. The five of us and our waiter played a joke on Coach McCarthy.
It was his birthday, so instead of getting him a cake, we had the
waiter tell him we skipped out on the check. The waiter did a great
acting job and coach fell for it all the way. He came out of the restaurant
really mad and looking for us. He found us when we jumped out from
behind the bushes and yelled happy birthday with the waiter. We all
got a huge laugh out of that prank and had the whole restaurant thinking
we bailed on the check. But don’t worry, we paid it, and gave
the waiter a hefty tip. That was enough excitement for one night,
and we headed back to our rooms to get some sleep. Two of the biggest
games of the year tomorrow against nationally ranked Salisbury University.
Day Four, Game Day and Travel Day
Early wake up call this morning and a team breakfast got us
started for the day. It was generally quiet at breakfast and during
the short bus ride because of the anticipation of the huge task ahead
of us. I went through my normal routine of checking my email and phone
messages before I got dressed, and headed out to the bus.
We ended up losing both games, the first one a heartbreaker and the
second game just didn’t go our way. My roommate on the road
trips, sophomore Pat Moran, pitched a complete game gem, giving up
3 runs, but we could only put across 1 for him. We gained a lot of
experience by playing these tougher teams, and it will definitely
pay off come tournament time.
We loaded up the bus and stopped in town to get a quick bite to eat
and to change into our sweats for the long bus ride home. A lot of
the guys fell asleep and I didn’t wake up until we stopped in
New Jersey for a break. Real tired and sick of being on a bus, we
finally arrived back at school around 3:30am on Easter Sunday. Now
it’s time to get some rest till Tuesday when we get back in
the gym and practice.
It was disappointing to drop 3 of 4 games, but hey, that’s baseball.
We learned a lot about ourselves while on the road, had some good
laughs along the way and played hard each and every inning.
