Last Meaningful At Bat

Future Coach Cougan with his daughters Kelsey and Melissa

Here is a picture of me after my last meaningful at bat. This picture was taken at the conclusion of my last college game. SU played UPS. My guess is that UPS won by a small score such as 3-2 or 2-1. I think I remember going hit less. My last college hit was a 2 RBI double late in the second to last game which gave the illustrious Mark Bishop a win in his last college game over the University of Portland (who featured former Mariner Bill Krueger). Bish will ALWAYS owe me for that one.

I say last meaningful at bat because although I continued to play a season or two of semi-pro and later and much later played in some adult leagues those at bats did not have the thrill of "meaning". Not that SU played to big crowds, but in my mind the games meant more when playing for a cause, a recognised league where someone tracked the games and there was an ultimate recognised championship (USC beat ASU that year for the Championship, SU finished 3rd in the NorPac, after leading the league in the first half, our pitching was not deep enough).

I think about at bats, I think about them often and I want you guys to think about them. Watch them during the play-offs. Watch them as AT BATS. Watch what guys do with them. At bats are funny things. We hope to control them as either pitchers, catchers or hitters. Sometime we do, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we control them and get the results we want, sometime we do not get the results we want. Sometimes the "other guy" controls them but we still get what we want, most times we don't. Baseball lore, luck and the baseball Gods impact them. All we can do is do our best to control them, and control can change on any pitch. The game of baseball is played during "at bats" and this is the time frame we need to focus on and prepare for.

Our goal is to better ourselves in the off season. Our goal is to better ourselves during the upcoming season. We better ourselves by learning how to shape and meet our at bats.

And here is where I am going to get all funky on you (if I haven't already). I want us to work hard this winter to prepare for our upcoming at bats. But as hard as I want you to work, as hard as I want you to fight during the upcoming season's at-bat's I want you to realize that each at bat you have this summer is going to be a PRE MEANINGFUL at bat. Trial runs. Learning experiences. What will matter is our evolution during this summer as to how we grow from each at bat to the next. We can try different things, take the long term approach, get creative as we learn what kind of hitter we are going to be, what works best in our at bats. Our goal is to get comfortable with at bats, learn about at bats and take this knowledge that we will acquire this summer into the future MEANINGFUL at bats and become the dominating player at the next level that we want to be.

Melissa and Kelsey grown up and only slightly affected by Coach Cougan's horrible parenting