Sunday - a little warm up in the field and the teams are announced

Sunday is always a great day at camp - seeing old friends, getting your locker set up with your uniforms and looking the part. The campers play a little baseball to get the kinks out to be ready for the week -- we play 7 games of round robin with the 8 team format and then we break off into 2 divisions of 4 to play on Friday and winners play in the championship games on Saturday (so 8 games -- 9 games total!)

This year's teams and coaches are as follows:

Team 1 - "Weapons of Destruction" - Coached by Bill Campbell and Steve Braun
Team 2 - "Warriors" - Coached by Phil Roof and Matthew LeCroy
Team 3 - "3 Amigos" - Coached by Tony Oliva, Dick Stigman, and Juan Berenguer
Team 4 - "Wins & Saves" - Coached by Frank Viola and Jeff Reardon
Team 5 - "Ball Barians" - Coached by Al Newman & Juan Rincon
Team 6 - "Shakers" - Coached by JC Romero, Mickey Hatcher, & Tommy Watkins
Team 7 - "Oreo's" - Coached by Jacques Jones, Gene Larkin, and Milt Cuyler
Team 8 - "Ditch Cougars" - Coached by Kent Hrbek & Tim Laudner

BOLD predictions -- while it seems I would have better luck throwing the teams into a hat and pulling them out and giving them rankings I am going to predict the following teams as Hall of Fame potential (HOFp), Good could be Great (GG), and To Be Determined (TBD)

HOFp:
Weapons of Destruction -- well because I play on the team -- so I have to rank us high right?  The team has plenty of pitching (let's just make sure we do not have a walk parade), the defense should be good (if not very good) - we are not deep in the catching department but maybe we can find some solutions there, but solid team overall - I was shocked at some of my teammates on the team (like last year) so let's hope we play up to our potential and be that top team! (and I might point out - many other campers came up to me to tell me our team looks pretty good.....so not just my opinion)

GG:
Shake It Up - they could go 7-0 or 2-5 -- they have a very solid team, they have like 5 catchers on the team (so how does that work for defense?), but I think they figure it out and fight for a top 3 spot
Warriors - they have a good mix of "everything" here - lack of pitching might be the only item I can point out as a weakness
Wins & Saves - solid all around team, I wonder what the "bottom" of the roster will do for them, but deep pitching and good hitting should carry them far
Ball Barriers - this team might have the most baseball pedigree, staying healthy will be key for them

TBD:
Ditch Cougars - I don't see more than 3 pitchers on this roster, and might have the oldest roster in camp
Oreo's (best named team in camp) - I foresee some offensive problems (maybe need to contact Zimmer for an OC position) and defensive depth may not be a strength either
Stigman Cartel - Offense will be a problem for them, they have some top end talent they will need to ride for W's

So there you go -- hopefully I cash in with my predictions correctly -- remember the top 4 teams get to play Friday to get to Saturday championship -- so basically it doesn't matter what you do -- win on Friday, play in the big stadium Saturday for the championship -- that is what matters!

We will start bright and early tomorrow AM - 10am and 1pm games better get some sleep.

The weather looks amazing -- sunny and high 70's......let's play 2!

~~ "You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra ~~