Baseball on a Saturday

Trafton B.

April 24, 2010 - 8:32 PM

Today - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - was a full day dedicated to baseball. Well, to be honest, the morning was dedicated more for catching up on sleep and throwing together a decent breakfast with whatever we have left in our fridge, but the afternoon and night was dedicated to baseball, I swear.

This afternoon, Winston, Kevin, Steven, Ross and I headed to Grand Slam USA at the Valley River Center Mall for a few rounds in the batting cages. You know, to get ready for intramural softball playoffs. Oddly enough, we wondered why the other half of our team, who shall renamed nameless, are the ones that need the practice. We guys just want an excuse to hit something with a club.

It was a good session, I'd say. We had a few cobwebs to shake off, but we all felt pretty good about ourselves as we wailed on slow pitch softballs while on either side little leaguers were being shut down by fast pitch hardballs. Going to a batting cage to hit softballs instead of baseball was a new experience for me. It was strange because I was one of those kids on the fast pitch machine not so long ago, and my uncle or a friend's dad would be hitting softballs, but times change I guess.

The afternoon was really a big, stereotypical high school flashback: hitting in the batting cages, hanging around a mall on a Saturday, and then having lunch at Red Robin, afterwards. Bottomless Freckled Lemonades, a Santa Fe Burger and endless steak cut fries - can't do much better than that.
After our late lunch, we headed back to campus for the Duck's baseball game against USC. I was excited for two reasons. First, I hadn't been to PK Park since its construction in the off-season. Second, my kindergarten pal - Chris McCaffrey - is a relief pitcher in the Trojan's bullpen, but I wasn't sure if he would on the traveling team. Alas, he wasn't there. I forgot that he had surgery in late winter and was taking the season off, but PK Park still looked good.

The Ducks lost in extra innings after scoring a pair of runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie the game at four runs apiece. It was a thriller, but we only had enough for second place. The stage is set for a rubber match on Sunday afternoon. I've heard rumors of free pints of ice cream. I might have to make an appearance.

The new stadium is sweet! PK Park, named after former athletic director Pat Kilkenny as opposed to Nike co-founder/chairman and well-known University of Oregon mega-donor, Phil Knight (or Penny Knight, Phil's wife, for that matter). Plus, the baseball team is, dare I say, good this year. We own a 26-13 record after today's defeat, and we slipped into the NCAA rankings at the beginning of this week at #18. Not too shabby for our second season after taking a 26 year hiatus. The same thing happened last year though. We'll see if Coach Horton can finish the season as well as he started.