Tusculum Baseball Notebook: Player Blog #2 by Dustin Morrow

Morrow is a senior 1B on the Tusculum Baseball Team

May 14, 2008 

8:30 A.M. – Woke up earlier than I wanted to but I decided to go ahead and get up and enjoy the day. I went down stairs to the restaurant to enjoy a nice hot continental breakfast. I had eggs, bacon, brunch potatoes, a waffle with strawberries, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of coffee. There’s nothing better to get you going than a nice hot breakfast.

9:45 A.M. – After sitting at breakfast for a while relaxing and talking I figured I better get unpacked since I had not gotten around to it on our hectic travel day. I folded all of my clothes and neatly put them in drawers just like my mom taught me to do. I laid back down for a few minutes before starting to prepare myself for practice.

10:30 A.M. - Although we weren’t leaving for practice until noon , I had to start getting myself prepared now. Today will mark the first practice or game I have participated in since getting injured on March, 25^th. I started my treatment by spending 15 minutes dangling my leg in the hot tub to loosen up the muscles. Then it was off to head athletic trainer Chris Lenker’s room to get some ultrasound and a massage.

12 P.M. – We left for the trek (3 minute drive) to the campus of the University of Tampa for our one hour practice session. Unfortunately we left a man behind due to some clock issues but we didn’t let that damper our spirits.

12:30 P.M. (exactly) – we started practice by taking ground balls and fly balls to familiarize the guys with the field. These were the first groundballs I had taken in over a month but I felt right at home. I guess you can add playing baseball to the list of things that are like riding a bike. Once our esteemed time keeper Mr. Dom Donnelly informed us that our time for groundballs was over we moved on to taking batting practice. BP went well and I was swinging the stick like I did back before my freak injury sidelined me. Once our time on the field had expired we loaded up the vans and headed back to the hotel for lunch.

1:45 P.M. – After a nice sub it was time for me to take a bath. Yes, it may seem strange that a 6’4” man would be taking a bath but this was no ordinary bath. It was a nice, soothing, ice bath. I loaded the tub with four trashcans full of ice then submerged myself in the icy water. For a minute I felt like I was on the show “Deadliest Catch” and had been tossed into the Bearing Sea . It took me little bit to get use to the frigid temperature and control my breathing but once I did the ten minutes went by quickly.

2:30 P.M. – Some of the guys and I are going back to the Rays vs. Yankees game tonight and decided to leave early to catch BP. I got a quick shower then walked a few blocks to get a camera from CVS because I left mine in Greeneville.

4:30 P.M. – Coach Lawson, Chris Lenker, myself, and 14 other guys loaded up to fight the traffic to get to Tropicana field in St. Petersburg. Once we arrived we bought our tickets then headed inside to get front row seats to watch the Yankees take BP. We were within shouting distance of MLB greats like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Bobby Abreu, and more. Never have I seen grown college men act like suck little kids, standing in awe players we have only seen on TV.

7:10 P.M. – First pitch. Although our tickets were for the nosebleed section we decided it was our civic responsibility to fill in the seats four rows behind the Yankees bullpen in order to give the appearance that the game was crowded. To put it bluntly, it was awesome! We weren’t going to leave early tonight after missing the conclusion to last nights phenomenal game. Tonight the Yankees pulled out a win, 2 to 1, behind stellar pitching from Mike Mussina.

10:00 P.M. – We loaded up the vans and headed for the hotel.

10:30 P.M. – We move a total of 30 feet in the parking lot before Coach Lawson so an opening and made a bee line for the exit. Once we got going we were back to the hotel in no time.

12:00 A.M. – After sitting around talking a while with some of the guys and working a few crossword puzzles (got to keep my mind sharp) I turned in for the night.

Tomorrow is the big day!