Web MasterQ: One might imagine the baseball team is a rather humorous group. If so, what makes this team enjoyable and sets you apart from others?
Junior third baseman, Mark Glover: It’s definitely an interesting group of people. I guess there are just a lot of different guys with extremely different personalities. So you get these two different types of people together, who normally wouldn’t be together, and some funny stuff happens.
Sophomore right fielder, Joe Kelly: At some point someone is always doing something wacky, something that is off the hook. We’ve just recently picked up this game called shoe golf. You put your shoe on your foot and kick it as far as you can. So William Wooten decided that he’d kick one and put a little extra effort into it, and it landed on top of the gas station. So he lost his shoe, and instead of trying to figure out a way to get it he just threw the other one up there. Maybe the best part about the baseball team is when it’s time to play baseball we play baseball, but we never stop having a good time. Even when we play poorly, it’s all shits and giggles.
Q: Word on the street has it that each baseball player has an impeccable sense of style that enhances his own unique personality. What validity is there to that statement?
Kelly: We all know what certain guys are going to wear to the airport when we go to Florida. Like Graham [McBride] is going to wear something silly. He’s got this shirt – it’s got this crazy looking dog on it. Graham always has something that is like a little off the wall to get a laugh. Someone like Nate Hadsell is going to be all GQ. Like this year he wore capri pants. We railed on him for a long time on that one.
Q: I can’t say I’ve seen those fashion statements taking off here at WU, but at the same time I can’t help but notice the word boot seems to be spreading across campus. Do you have any idea how that term originated?
Kelly: That came straight from the baseball team. There was a guy from a junior college that had a boot tied to a rope, and any time a guy made an error they’d throw the boot out. Then they’d pull it back in. So boot became a word for an error. So this guy transferred and brought this over from another school. We picked it up, and now it has become a phenomenon at WU. I’ve heard people at this school say boot. If somebody pukes, we boot it. Say you’re in Center Court and you see somebody drop his tray, yell ‘boot!’ If there is any lasting effect that the baseball team has had on the community at large, it’s definitely the boot.
Q: Several other WU teams, which shall go unnamed, have claimed to make their lasting mark on the school through being by far the best-looking squads at the school. Where do you think you guys fall in the rankings, if at all?
Sophomore pitcher Damien Janet: Oh, well, I mean it’s not really a competition. I mean, have you seen the baseball team? I think we’re definitely the best looking team.
Q: Yeah, rumor has it that there are actually a lot of eligible studs on the team. Is that right?
Kelly: Baseball players play too much baseball during the spring semester; so a lot of them are single. You don’t have that much time for girls. There are a lot of eligible bachelors on this team. Notables: definitely Noah Valentino, William Wooten for sure and Bobby Collins Jr. Now, Tony Bianco, I don’t know why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Trevor: he’s an animal! And Damien: Damien can get girls; he just has problems going out with them. So for young ladies who are looking for boyfriends, definitely look up some of these baseball players because they are a hot commodity. They will go fast once baseball ends.
Q: So you think you’re all studs, but surely you’ve heard girls refer to tall, dark and handsome as the paragon of attractiveness. Even with the looks and the suntans, what about the height factor?
Janet: There are quite a few short people. [Coach] says short people have no reason to live. But think about it, short girls need short guys. Tall, dark and handsome is overrated.
Q: You guys never seem shy to joke about your teammates. Are the players close in the sense that they like to hang out or party together outside of practice and games?
Kelly: Not so much. We’ve had occasional parties, but for the most part we each have our own group of friends. But see, practicing is like a social experience anyway. Doing batting practice we go out in the outfield and shag baseballs as other people are hitting them. We socialize. And, occasionally coach lets us take off our shirts and get funny tans.
Senior pitcher John O’Connell: We’ll go out together occasionally. There are several baseball parties organized by the freshmen, and we get together for the Super Bowl every year.
Q: Have lasting nicknames developed for many of the players?
Janet: Yeah, Mullet Mark. That one was just given to [Glover]. Someone on the other team was making fun of him.
Kelly: Mark Glover is also G-love. Moonlight Graham: that’s from Field of Dreams, and it’s a really good name for him because it’s kind of out there. Tony the Bronco Bianco: it just sounds right. Nate Liberman’s nickname is Nate Bitterman because he argues about everything. Noah Valentino’s nickname is Goober. He’s just a big goober. Will Wooten: his name is Will Wooten, but he says Wheel Wooten or Weeyam Wooten.
Q: Moving on, could someone please point out what the deal is with the tarp, meaning: why all the hard feelings?
O’Connell: It causes us to get up early, and we end up doing it like four or five times a days at times. And it doesn’t even work because it’s got holes in it and leaks.
Kelly: It’s really a half-ass system, but it also gives coach a reason to get us up at 7:00 a.m. or at 10:30 in the night.
Q: Well, about Coach Lessmann, what do you make of him and the advice he offers?
Janet: He’s very unpredictable. One moment he’ll be very laid back and then he’ll have some comment and he’ll be yelling at you from the dugout. He’ll say, ‘You’ve got a home run swing but you can’t hit home runs;’ ‘I’ve seen better pitchers of beer,’ or ‘You look like nine Russians out there.’ Every day he’ll come up with a new one.
Glover: He definitely adds to the interesting mix on the baseball team. And he basically tells us that we’re horrible, which is true, and he tells us we can’t play baseball. Oh, and he tells us to hit home runs.
Q: Have you been building any relationships with those living in the dorms by the field?
Kelly: Oh that’s for sure. We look up there and start yelling. All of a sudden this girl’s head pops up.
Q: Can you recall any time when a baseball hit a student from the dorms?
Janet: We’re just waiting for the day a window gets broken. I think it happened two years ago. But last year, I know some girl got hit on the head. She was sunbathing and she got hit in the head off a home run that bounced.
Q: Have any home runs or foul balls hit cars passing by?
Janet: If you knock a ball over the fence it will bounce onto Forsyth and hit a car.
Kelly: No one has ever really crashed or anything. We had one hit a Volvo going by, and when we see cop cars, we do often aim at them.
Q: Surely hitting students or their cars is not the best way to gain spectators. However, you must have some faithful fans, correct?
Kelly: We have five fans per game. And, that includes mommies and daddies because Mr. and Mrs. Deschamp come to every game. People ask us, ‘When’s your next home game? I really want to stop by.’ No they don’t. People who don’t care about baseball: Don’t ask because it just makes us feel bad.
Q: You will play at home once more, 3 p.m. Tuesday May 1, in a doubleheader against Webster. Why do you hope to see more fans in the stands that day?
Kelly: I play better, everyone plays better, when there are more fans. So everyone wants to have fans and be recognized for their physical prowess, but it just goes to show that at 1:00 in the afternoon when we’re playing baseball, other people have better things to do. I don’t know, study? If people spent as much time studying as complaining about studying then they would have plenty of time to see a baseball game. I would assume that girls would show up just to see us in the white pants! So you can tell all those girls they can skip the swim meet and the water polo match and come see the baseball players in the white pants. Because those things are sexy! Baseball is America’s favorite pastime. Maybe it’s that we don’t serve beer and hot dogs. I guess there is really no incentive here.