Anything but Routine!

I'm tired, exhausted, and frankly very burnt out, but I had a very wonderful 48 hours. After the Tacoma experience on Saturday, my mother and I today took what is becoming a very routine trip down to Portland and to PGE Park to see the Beavers play Nashville. Let me tell you right now, Baseball Roadtrips are never routine! New experiences await around every corner in every single city and ballpark I go to. Always expect the unexpected.

For my PPPM 494 class, we are required to write a paper profiling a leader of our choice. I decided that an appropriate subject would be Portland Beavers manager Randy Ready. For the past week, I have been in contact with the Media Relations department for the Beavers, and today, I was lucky enough to interview Coach Ready himself in the dugout at PGE Park.

Randy Ready is a very class act. He is very well-spoken and his knowledge of the game is impeccable. It is no wonder that he was voted the top managing prospect by his peers last year. I asked him questions about what got him into coaching after his playing career, who his inspirations, conflict resolutions, time management techniques, and coping strategies for the long season.

I was surprised by a lot of his answers, especially when I asked him the following: " If you had the ability to promote players, what qualities, besides athleticism, would you be looking for?" The Coach surprised by saying that the organization is focused solely on performance on the field. When asked about personality, he responded that it wasn't a factor. This surprises me because baseball players are under such scrutiny from the community in general that they would, logically, need some type of personality that would be conducive to interaction in a positive fashion. But, his answer does make sense. Just look at my earlier blog posting about Jon Lackey.

The assignment is required to be 6-8 pages, and I think I should have no problem complying with that.

All right, on to the game...

The Beavers scored four runs in the first inning to speed out to an early lead. But they couldn't hold it as Nashville chipped away at the Portland relievers slowly until exploding for their own four run outburst in the sixth inning eventually winning 8-6.

Now, let the countdown begin. My next entry will be from Pittsburgh, PA on June 14 to start out the NL Central roadtrip. From there, I will blog from Chicago, IL after a game at Wrigley Field on June 16. To end, I will post from St. Louis on June 17 following the Detroit-St. Louis game from Busch Stadium.

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)