The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
The Ping Is Back: Baseball Opens Fall Camp
10/4/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Oct. 4, 2007
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The UAB baseball team began its 33-day fall practice period at Young Memorial Field Thursday afternoon. The Blazers are coming off a year in which they finished tied for fourth in Conference USA after going 12-12 in league play and 25-33 overall. The team welcomes 14 newcomers to the clubhouse this season.
"I've been looking forward to this," said second-year head coach Brian Shoop prior to Thursday's workout. "This is my favorite time of year. It's a great time to get all your schemes put in place and these are an incredibly important 33 days in my mind. It's a good time to build relationships and get to know each other. There's no winning and losing going on and there is nobody sitting on the bench, so you try to create a less stressful environment to build relationships to where they need to be."
Shoop and his staff find themselves in a different situation than they did a year ago. The longtime Birmingham-Southern coach took over a UAB program in 2006 that was coming off a 19-38 season in which it and endured a 19-game losing streak.
Though the Blazers finished in a tie for fourth in one of nation's top leagues in 2007, Shoop said confidence is still a focus in preparing for the 2008 campaign.
"They are still fragile," he said. "We've brought in a confidence conditioner again. We literally practice walking with confidence. We want them to learn how to deal with failure and disappointment."
The Blazers lost five starting position players from 2006, including two first-team All-Conference USA picks in catcher Danny Sawyer and outfielder J.R. Bond. However, the Blazers add a total of 14 talented newcomers (six pitchers, eight position players) that Shoop is confident can help the club this season.
"We lost our two all-conference players and a lot of starters," Shoop said. "We're trying to maintain with new players, but we've got to get better on the mound. Last year, Mitch (Kloskowski) and Brandon (Wallace) did a great job for us, and our record showed that. We were 10-4 on Friday's, 7-7 on Saturday's and 3-11 on Sunday's. I've always believed that Sunday is a championship day and it's a pitching day. When we got into our depth (last season) we really struggled."
Shoop said he believes there will be a lot of healthy competition amongst the pitching staff, an area where the Blazers had struggles in 2007, holding a combined ERA of 5.21.
"There will be very intense competition to win spots," Shoop said. "We have 18 pitchers on staff and we carry 12 for conference weekends. That's five starters and six in the pen and six will be left off, so that will be really competitive and that's where we need to improve the most."
The Blazers will continue fall practice through Nov. 10. All practices at Young Memorial Field are open to the public. The team tentatively practices at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday's and Thursday's, 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday's, 3:30 p.m. on Friday's and 11 a.m. on Saturday's.
