Welcome to On the Road with Mike Macenko. October '09
DISNEY.
The softball season is winding down once again so we know we have some new National Champions. Congratulations to your USSSA winners that include Resmondo/Specialty Tank-Men’s Major, GTL/Cartel/Stucco-Class A, Northwest Combat-USSSA Class B, Casey’s Bailbonds/Castle-Class C, Lewis Home Buyer-Class D, and there was an Class E West- Somethin' Different and Class E East Toledo Borrachos. Once again congratulations on your team’s victories.
Now to my two week trip.
I was on the road for the last 2 weeks of September. I traveled from Cleveland to New York to work for one day in the office at Anaconda Sports. Later that evening we took some swings with the new Gear Supremacy and the Afflicted as well. I was really surprised at how well the Supremacy was hitting the ball right out of the wrapper. All I can say is that the ball was really coming off of this bat. We were hitting X-Rocks 44/375 so we could get a true feel for the bat. The gear Supremacy even has a smaller knob than most Combats. The Gear Supremacy is a Jason Kendrick Signature model so I believe the small knob was put on there for his liking. Which is a good thing because a lot of players like the smaller knob. Great job on this bat from Combat.
We finished up hitting a bag each and then retiring for the night. I got up at 4:00 the next morning and Kevin and I headed down to Orlando, Florida for the USSSA’s championship tournaments. We took the Anaconda company van because we had over 300 softball bats with us to sell at the USSSA Slugfest and then the other USSSA tourneys.
As we were traveling down towards Orlando I got a chance to stop by and visit with one of my cousins. His name is Tony Hunt and he lives in Fairmont, North Carolina.. Fairmont is right off I-95. When I was in my middle teens growing up my mother would take my 4 brothers and I to North Carolina to visit. Every time I would go to N.C. I would put on 20 lbs. of muscle from all the good country cooking and working in the tobacco fields. I used to hang the tobacco sticks in the barns. I was 13 and 14 years old and would be climbing the barns like a monkey. Little did I know I was getting stronger everyday lifting those 25 to 50lb tobacco sticks. So we stopped my cousin’s house and his mother made us some cornbread and collards and black eyed peas and it felt like old times. My cousin’s daughter is playing fast pitch softball herself. So guess what we talked about while we were eating? You guessed it, Softball. Ha! Ha! We stayed for about 4 hours and then Kevin and I got back in the van and went on down the road… We got a room that night and made the rest of the trip on Thursday and arrived in Orlando around 6:00. We made it there in time to go eat with Bobby Nifong at the Boston Lobster. Whew!
We got up early on Friday morning to get ourselves set up for the upcoming events. We took a ride out to the USSSA headquarters for the Class B managers meeting. Kevin needed to be there because he was coaching a friend’s team called Tri-State out of Maryland. They played a pretty good tourney and ended up tied for 5th or 6th..
For our first weekend tourney we worked the Class B. We were able to set up at Fortune Rd. Softball Complex and watch the Class B championships. A special thanks goes out to the owner and his workers for the great job they did on the fields all weekend long and the hospitality they showed us. The complex itself is perfect field dimension to play softball on today. The fields are 320 feet down the lines and 340 feet in dead center.
From the very first homerun to the final out of the tourney was quite interesting because after every home run they were taking your bats and testing them right there on the spot. If the bat tested below the number of 220 then your bat was taken away and not returned to you for the rest of the tourney. The bat would then be submitted to its rightful manufacturer to see if the bat has been tinkered with. It made things kind of tough right from the beginning because the players were asking themselves if they should hit with this bat or that one. Now if you know your bat has been worked on I don’t think I would be going to the plate with it. But you know softball players today want to win and if that is the way they have been playing all year they probably won’t stop now. I thought that it made things kind of tough submitting your bats now while playing in the championships.
My thinking is the USSSA is trying to make a statement and if that is the case they did just that. I had players coming up to me asking me what they should do? I told them if your bat is clean then hit with it. If they take it so be it but at least you know it has not been tampered with. I sold one player a Easton Synergy CNT and he still had one in his bag with over 4000 hits on it. Now what do we think the wall thickness will be on that. It’s starting to get crazy when you put the proper amount of swings on the bat and it becomes so hot that they want to take it from you. Now that don’t make no sense.
On Friday night they started taking bats after home runs and then if a ball was hit at the pitcher and he caught it, that bat was taken and checked also. Now I think it is a good idea to check something like that but I think it should be a judgement call. Assess the situation and decide if you think the player did it on purpose or not. There was so much bet checking on Friday night that they dropped that rule come Saturday morning. If a pitcher did get hit with a shot then the bat was looked at but it wasn’t like it was on Friday.
The USSSA Class B division is really fun to watch. At the Fortune Rd. complex you could see great plays on every field.. Northwest Combat won the B division as they outscored their opponents 91 – 26. The only close game they had was against Fencebrokers as they beat them 7 – 5. That game was played at 12:00 noon so we know how the ball travels when the heat is up. I can tell you that the heat was up that day at around 95 degrees. I saw a lot of great plays from all of the teams. There is plenty of defense in the B division. With the 5 man infield set up you can witness some really cool plays, from double plays to players hitting the cutoff and cutting runners down. Inj the Sunday morning losers bracket it came down to just that. With West Coast being down one run to tie, the last batter of the game launches a sure line drive to left field that was right down the line. I thought for sure the runner on second base was going to score to tie the game. Instead the left fielder cuts the ball and makes a great play in doing so, turns and fires a throw to the cutoff man who throws home to tag the runner out at the plate. That ended the game. The crowd was roaring because it took two great throws to cut the runner down but they did it. Congrats to the Watanabe squad for a great tourney. Even though they came in second place they played some great ball for the weekend and they played with class.
So what more could I ask for. I am working selling softball equipment and I am watching some of the best softball there is. After the championship game on Sunday we asked the owners and ground crew if we could take some swings before we lseft. As I said they were some great gjuys and they go right ahead. I had the chance to hit with some of the big boys that day. There was Brett Helmer, Rusty Bumgardner, Brian Wegman, Bobby Nifong and and a young new stud in softball named Greg Connell. We ended up hitting a mixture of balls. We were hitting some 40 cor’s and we were hitting some Dudley ZN’s that they use in the Disney stadium. There was some long balls hit during this batting practice. Brett Helmer hit a couple of shots that might still be going. The one would still be going but it hit the top of the light pole. It was quite a shot. Rusty and Wegman were hitting their usually long home runs. Brian said he felt a little bit tight but that was from lifting a little bit. I told him to just keep swinging you will be just fine. Greg Connell was the one that surprised me. I never really have had a chance to watch him that close. He was tagging them day. He hit one ball with a Worth bat that we had that went right around 500 feet. Now if that is noit hitting it then I don’t know what is. He is a young boy and has a great future ion the game of softball.. Worth has done an exclusive with Anaconda Sports with a signature series for Greg Connell. We brought down two of them to Greg and he used them right out of the wrapper. That is one hot bat. In the home run derby on Friday night Greg had to bat right after USSSA Hall Of famer Jeff Wallace. Jeff had hit a couple of nice shots and the he hit his last pitch straight over the center field wall. The wall is 400 feet away and 50 feet high. All Greg did was tep right ionto the box and hit the first wo pitches right over the same center field wall. Not one but two. I thought that was quite impressive. Great Job Greg!
The Northwest Combat team stuck around and was watching us take some swings. They were still celebrating their championship right there at the field. They had the beers rolling pretty good. I was very happy for the Northwest Combat team as I do know some of the players and their coach, George Phillips. Great bunch of guys. As you know Combat makes a signature series bat for myself, the Mike Macenko Senior Gear.
Once again Comgrats to all the teams.
Part 1 of 2
