July 20th:
On the first day of our journey, all members of the Dominican Republic baseball team met at Christian High School for a one hour orientation. During the orientation, we introduced our prayer partners, watched a cultural video, reviewed a few important verses (Romans 3:23, John 3:16, and a few others), ate lunch, and received all our gear for the trip. At about 12:30 when the orientation was done, all of us headed out to the baseball field for a short, laid back practice. We took infield, batting practice, and had a short infers quad scrimmage. The practice was used mainly for coaches to see where they were going to position the players on the trip, but it also served as a great opportunity in getting the know each of the players better. After the practice was over, the team headed over to Coach Mike Mitchell's house for swimming, basketball, and dinner. It was there that I got to know all the players. The team consisted of Trip Leader Paul Berry, Coach Troy Norling, Coach Zac Nixon, Coach Fred Hartman, Coach Mason Martin, Coach Daryl Hebert, Head Coach Mike Mitchell, Kiegan Basso, Michael Horne, Sam Gershow, Joe Ross, Tyler Leslie, Stephen Johnston, AJ Gregorovic, Anthony Martin, Alex Nurding, Gordon Nixon, and myself - Matt Hartman. After some quality pool time, team bonding, and some delicious pizza, we headed off to the airport for our 10:10 PM flight to Philadelphia. A couple of long lines later, we found ourselves in the air on a red-eye flight to Philadelphia. The long 5 hour flight may have been at night, but many players/ coaches weren't able to sleep on the plane, which set the stage for an incredibly long second day......
No comments:
Post a Comment