Spring Training

Today I went running and froze to death as the frigid winter wind whipped around me. But, running outside around our cute neighborhood allowed me to run past the baseball fields where Brandon and I kicked off "Spring training" Baltimore Woodland style. I smiled the whole time I ran through those fields. Let me tell you the story so you can smile too ...

The other weekend the harsh winter weather let up and Coach Woodland gathered his baseball gloves and balls and headed over to the field with his "team". We chanted cheers to psych up the "team" for the first baseball practice of the year while we walked over to Rodgers Forge Elementary School and Middle School (see pic to the left). The slogan on the side of the school pumped us up even more: Rodgers Forge ahead!
Coach Woodland led the "team" in some stretches, then we threw back and forth standing a short distance apart to warm up our arms, and then we practiced throwing from progressively farther and farther away from each other. Some of the "team" couldn't really throw the whole distance, but Coach Woodland could sure throw far! Check out the pic of Coach Woodland on the right.

THEN, we ran drills. Ten repetitions of the following: one length of grapevine, one length of running backward, one length of high knees/skipping, one length of practicing leading off base and sprinting for home. Coach Woodland sure worked up a sweat doing those drills...and he kind of looked like this:

Except that he was the only man running the drills and he kept his shirt on. It was nice weather compared to the week where it didn't break 20 degrees, but not nice enough to really get hot. BUT we had a great time and came home muddy, tired, and better ball players than when we left.