Eye of the Tigers

Although I had a great week swimming, biking and running, this week wasn't about me...it was about my younger son Max, who is a sophomore at Florida Southern College. He's a left handed pitcher on a top notch Div. II team that's won the NCAA's 9 times. They're located in Lakeland, FL, home of the Detroit Tigers for spring training. The only college team that Detroit plays in the exhibition season is Florida Southern, and that game was this past Monday. Max had just come off his 2nd win of the season the Friday before, but the coach gave him the ball for the 1st inning against the Tigers. He retired the side in order on 10 pitches. Batters were: Cale Iorg, a top prospect at short stop, Marcus Thames the right fielder, and Casper Wells, the center fielder. Awesome! Florida Southern ended up losing the game 7-1, but Max was outstanding.

After a couple days of rest, Max started the Friday night game (3/6) against West Chester, a top Div. II school from outside Philadelphia, currently ranked 10th in the country. He took the game into into the 6th inning leading 17-3, and picked up his third win without a loss. So, this week is about him. Marla and I head down there on Thursday this week, for 10 days, and will hopefully see him pitch 2 Friday nights in a row. The 1st one (3/13) against Florida Tech in Melbourne, and the 2nd one will be (3/20) against Rollins, both of these games are Sunshine State Conference games. In a repeat performance of last year, I'm taking my father (88), who is a huge Red Sox and baseball fan, and my mom. It'll be nice to get into the warmth, especially after a day like today that was so spring like.

In other news, I read with great interest about Eric's training camp in Tucson. What an incredible week. And with me aging (I'll be 59 in 2 months) I was real interested in reading about one of the participants, Steve from Canada, who is 64 and put in a phenomenal week. It inspires hope in all of us, but certainly me. I don't know him, but great job Steve. I'll hopefully post a couple of blogs from Florida...