Road Trip and Wrist

We just got back from our 6 day road trip this morning at 8:30.  It was a really long trip and we didn't do so hot on the field.  We lost 5 out of 6.  The trip started on the wrong foot when we got about an hour into the 12 hour drive and the air conditioner broke on our bus.  We were headed for Lincoln, NE which was our longest drive of the year so this was not cool.  I have had buses lose air before but never for 11 hours.  This was probably the most miserable bus ride to date.  I don't understand what the deal is with these buses.  You would think they would be inspected before a trip to make sure everything is working properly. 

After a couple days in NE we got rid of that bus and had another one driven up from Amarillo.  The new one we got on was the same bus that we took to El Paso the time the air went out and two bags fell off the bottom.  So we went from bad to bad!  Sunday was my 25th birthday.  Yep, getting old, but I don't feel it!  I still feel like I'm 19 or 20.  I guess playing a sport makes you feel young.  Sure hope I feel like this when I'm 30. Hard to imagine that I'm only 5 years away from that number.  Wow.  Anyhow, my 25th birthday will definitely be memorable.  Our second bus broke down.  Literally 5 minutes from the stadium.  We were on our way to KC from Lincoln and we had stopped at a gas station for snacks.  When I got out of the store I noticed the hood was open on the bus with the bus drivers working on the engine.  That is never a good thing to see.  I don't know about you readers but I know if something happens to my car, I can't fix it.  I'm just the driver, not the mechanic.  That is why I take it in when something goes wrong.  So when I see a driver working on the engine it doesn't sit well with me. ESPECIALLY when I see a roll of duct tape on the tire.  Hmmmm.  Why was he taping the engine????  Come to find out the power steering tube busted and all the fluid leaked out and they were trying to tape it back together.  No way was I getting on a bus that was taped together.  We ended up sitting there for 2.5 hours and got it fixed by a mechanic.  We should have been in KC at 12:30 but we didn't get in until 5:15! 

While I was in KC my wife, Michaela, came to visit me for two days! It might have been the most fun we have ever had in two days.  It was awesome.  KC is a really neat city.  The other thing that made it cool was that we were driving around in a 2010 Dodge Challenger, my favorite car!!!  Michaela rented it at the airport and it was so worth it.  I loved driving that car.  Fun stuff.

Now I am back in Amarillo and tomorrow is supposed to be my first day back on the field.  I'm not sure if I will play tomorrow night but I could.  I have a doc appointment in the morning to see what he says about my wrist and then go from there.  I only have a few weeks left so I might just put up with a little discomfort so I can play out the rest of my time here.  I'm tired of just sitting around doing nothing.  I think it has been 3 weeks now so my wrist should be fine by now. 

Return Date

I'm in Lincoln, NE with the team right now on our road trip.  I have good and bad news.  The good news is my wrist is feeling good now.  The bad news is I have to wait until July 21st to play.  Roster rules are weird in this league so that is why I am having to wait until the 21st.  This is how it works.  The team has two options with an injured player.  Option one, put the guy on the DL.  If they do this they have to pay you your whole salary and that counts against the teams salary cap so it makes it hard to sign another player in your place while you're out.  Option two, release the player and pay the player workers comp until they are healthy.  That way it doesn't count against their salary cap and they can get another player while you are out.  My team kept me on the roster for most of the time that I was hurt but when they found out it would be another week or so they decided they needed to go ahead and pick up another player until I am back so they had to release me on paper.  I didn't actually get released though.  I'm just not on the roster.  I still dress out everyday and I am pretty much a coach.  I have been throwing batting practice and working with the catchers.  With the rules, since they released me, we have to wait 10 days until I can resign with the team and play.  So we are looking at July 21st as my first game back and I can't wait!


Yesterday was my first batting practice in about 2.5 weeks.  I felt pretty good in there.  The first round I just hit every ball on a line to right field.  Second round more middle of the field.  Third round I hit it where it was pitched then the fourth round I tried to swing a little harder.  My wrist didn't hurt at all but I could tell it was still a little weak.  When I tried swinging hard my last round my power wasn't quite there but that will come back in a few more bp sessions.  Just gotta get that strength back that I lost from wearing my wrist brace for a week. 

Today I will hit off a tee some, play catch, and once again coach first during the game.  Coaching first isn't a lot of fun but it does keep me somewhat busy so it is better than just sitting their uninvolved all game.

In other news: I'm 25 today:( YUCK! Can I be 15 again please? Where do the years go?  I feel like just yesterday I was cruising around the courthouse in my bright red mustang listening to the engine rumble!  Oh well, I guess now I can go rent a car. 

MRI Results

Ok, I got my MRI done but I still haven't seen a doctor.  Kinda ridiculous.  The doctor the team uses is out of town until Monday.  My appointment with him is Tuesday.  So, I have been hurt now since June 27 or 28 and I haven't seen a doctor and today is July 9.  I did have a doctor look at the MRI and tell me what he saw though so I at least have a little information.  They said I had a stress reaction around a bone in my wrist/hand which could mean that I have a stress fracture but those don't show up on MRIs for a few weeks usually.  Right now me and the trainer are treating it like a stress fracture.  I have to wear a brace on my left wrist and I can't do anything.  I go to the gym and do legs every other day since that is about the only way I can keep myself from going crazy and keep in some bit of shape.  Not sure when I will be able to play again.  From what I have heard and researched these usually heal in about 2 weeks so my goal is to be playing again by July 18th.  Michaela is coming to see my in KC around that time too and I really want to be playing by then so she can see me play this year.  It will be her only chance to see me! 

MRI Trips

Yesterday was supposed to be my MRI day.  I knew something was going to go wrong when I was told that I had to be there when the place opened and I didn't have an MRI time.  In my life I have probably had about 4 MRIs and I know that I have always had a scheduled time for the MRI.  I never just showed up.  So the place I was going to opened at 8:30.  Here was warning sign number two that something was going to go wrong.  The door was locked.  I waited around for about 15 mins before being able to go inside.  So, no scheduled time, and the office wasn't open.  Not a great start.  It gets better.  For those of you who don't know me all that well, I do not do well with unorganized businesses or people who don't do their jobs correctly.  My trainer and I went up to the window together to talk to the lady working the coutner about this mythical MRI I was to have done yesterday.  Apparently there was supposed to be a note left by the doctor, who is out until July 11,  for me to get an MRI done on Tuesday and it couldn't be found.  So, either doc forgot or it was lost.  Who knows.  While the lady was looking for this note she gave me two pieces of paper to fill out.  You know, the typical stuff you get when you go to the doc for the first time.  It takes no longer than 5 mins.  After 3 mins I took the paperwork back up to the window to hand to the lady.  Oh, and during the 3 mins I was filling out the papers she told us she couldn't find the note so she would have to rewrite something and wait for some other doc to come in to write a script for the MRI.  She said he would be there in a couple of mins.  So, I go to the window to hand the papers to the lady and she is not there.  No, she is around the corner telling stories about her July 4th weekend and how terrible it was because she had to do so many things and they all went wrong.  You know how they say don't bring your work home?  Well, I don't think your should bring your home to work either.  I stood at the windo for a couple mins before I realized this lady wasn't going to acknowledge me at all so I sat back down and left the papers there.  45 mins passed before she took one breath and poked her head around the corner.  She talked non stop for 45 mins and did not do her job for 45 mins.  Then when she decided to breath at the end of her little story and look around the corner she saw me and my trainer sitting there and guess what she said.  "I'm so sorry I forgot you guys were even here...."  Really?!?! Forgot we were even there!?  I was pretty mad about that because this whole time I thought we were just waiting for the other doctor to arrive.  No, he got there about 5 mins after I filled out the papers.  Needless to say I was pretty annoyed by the lady at the window.  To make matters worse I didn't even get the MRI yesterday like I was told!  So I got up at 8 a.m. for nothing and sat in a doctor's office for an hour.  No fun. 

Today I actually did get my MRI done.  Those tubes weren't made for adults.  They are tiny!  I have not gotten the results yet.  I asked the guy who did it if he could have a radiologist or someone read it really fast so I can know if I am able to play or not instead of waiting until the team doctor gets back from vacation.  Hopefully they let us know by the end of the day or tomorrow exactly what they saw because it has already been a week since I have played and I am really getting impatient.  I want to play!!

Wrist Update

Not much has changed since my last update except that my wrist is feeling better.  I still haven't played though.  I am scheduled for my mri tomorrow morning and I should have the results back no later than Thursday.  Hopefully before that though because I really am interested to find out what is going on with my wrist.  It did hit front toss today and felt like I was about 80% which makes me feel like there isn't anything more than a sprain going on.  I sure hope I am right because I'm sick of sitting on the bench and watching.  I want to get out there and play and contribute.  The hardest part for me is not being out there for my pitchers.  I really take a lot of pride in my pitch calling and I always feel like my pitchers and I are usually on the same page.  So I'm hoping for good news and looking forward to getting back on the field!

Ft. Worth

We are in Fort Worth right now and have been for our last 3 games.  We are up 2-1 in the series and looking for the series win tonight.  For those of you that look up the box scores you may have noticed I didn't play yesterday and it may be that way for a few more games.  I twisted my wrist hitting a couple games ago and tried to keep playing with it but I just wasn't able to swing the bat good enough to try to keep playing so I am resting for a couple days until it gets better.  There is no point it trying to push through a wrist injury because hitting is pretty important!  I am pretty mad about this happening to me now since I have been swinging the bat so well over the past 2 weeks.  I want to get back in there playing everyday and feeling good!  I'll keep you guys updated on how I'm doing.  I hope to miss no more than 2 or 3 games while I let this wrist get back to 100%. 

Game of Adjustments

It has been a few days since I have written an update on the season.  Since my last post I have been doing pretty good.  Been having some great at bats and catching really well.  Tonight was the first night I didn't get a hit in a while but I had 1 good at bat and 2 great out of 4 plate appearances and I might a slight adjustment mid game to helped me have those two great at bats.  I noticed my first two at bats that I didn't quite feel right up at the plate.  I wasn't seeing the ball as well and I didn't have that same feel with my swing I had been feeling for over a week.  I realized after my second AB that I was slightly open with my front shoulder in my stance so I fixed that my next trip to the plate and walked.  My last at bat I got a fastball down the middle that I was right on but flew out to deep left field.  If I wasn't so much under the ball it would have gone way out.  But I was right on it, squared it up perfectly, just hit it up a little too high.  I think I also threw out 1 or 2 baserunners today along with 1 or 2 yesterday.  Yesterday I hit my 5th homer of the year too.  It was a line drive to left center and felt great, especially getting my homerun money.  I made like 180 buck off of it! It was awesome.  I don't know if I have described the homerun tradition here but after you hit one at our field you run to the backstop and people give you money!!!!  It is awesome!  I would like to hit a few more homers this season and keep raking in the cash.  We are on a pretty good run lately as a team.  We have one something like 11 of 14 I believe.  We play at home again tomorrow before going on a trip to Fort Worth.  We will be on the road for 6 games after tomorrow.  I will not have internet at Fort Worth so I won't be able to update unless I somehow find some internet.  If I do I will update while I'm there. 

Hope everyone is still having a wonderful summer!

Homerun Central

My first two homer night of the year came last night in El Paso.  I had 6 at bats yesterday in our 14-4 win.  Out of those 6 at bats I had 4 great at bats and two not so great.  My first at bat was probably my best of the night and maybe my best of the year.  I had a 3-2 count on me in the first inning with two men on and I got a change up, up and away, and I drilled it over the right field fence.  This was the first opposite field homer for me since college.  That was pretty neat for me hitting it oppo.  My second at bat they were once again pitching me away and I had a 2-2 count and I drilled a ball right down the right field line that the first baseman jumped for and made a great snag.  I wasn't a step out of the box when he caught it.  My third at bad was a bad one as I swung at a low pitch and was early on it and hit a little grounder to first.  Fourth at bat- We had men on 1st and 3rd with one out and the infield was playing in so I'm looking for something to lift to the outfield.  I didn't get much to swing at so I had 2 strikes again and I drilled a shot to the left of the third baseman about 2 feet off the ground.  He dove and made a nice catch on that ball.  I once again wasn't a step out of the box and I was out!  So far 3 very hard hit balls on the night so I'm happy with that.  My fifth at bat was in the 8th inning with the bases empty.  1-0 fastball right down broadway that I unloaded on and hit a line drive homer over the left center wall.  The wall here in El Paso is about 20 feet high and the ball I hit probably cleared it by about 3 feet.  My buddy plays first for El Paso and he said it looked like a golf ball that rises and keeps rising.  That was pretty neat.  My sixth at bat was a bad at bat.  I don't think I was completely focused like I needed to be.  That is something I can improve on though.  Keeping my focus even if it is my 6th at bat and the 9th inning up by 10 runs.  I struck out swinging at a pitch off the plate that I normally wouldn't even swing at.  But all in all it was a great night at the plate for me with 4 great at bats.  On the catching side of the game I called a great game, and blocked the ball very well.  I kept everything in front of me.  We will see what tonight has in store! Hopefully another win!

Out in The West Texas Town of El Paso

We are back in El Paso after a nice day off in Amarillo.  We left Amarillo at midnight last night to come to El Paso for our three game series here.  The bus ride was once again pretty rough.  I think they just give us the crappy bus everytime we go to El Paso.  And the roads coming here must be terrible too because it is one bumpy ride.  I didnt' get much sleep so when we got to the hotel I went to sleep for a few hours before going over to the Denny's next to the hotel for some lunch.  We are about to head to the field to take BP so I need to cut this post off now.  Hoping for another good game tonight at the plate filled with some good at bats!

New Update

Hey guys...it has been a while since I have updated ya'll.  Tonight we lost by two runs.  A former Braves big leaguer hit a two run homer in the top of the 9th to take a two run lead and we lost 8-6.  I had 4 great at bats tonight.  Hit my first at bat on a slider, I broke my bat but it was a good hit because I keep my bat in the plane of the pitch for a long time and still had enough to get it over the short stop's head.  My second at bat I hit a deep liner to center field that was caught.  Third at bat I hit a hard grounder in the six whole that the short stop slid and stopped and couldn't throw me out.  My final at bat I got a sac bunt.  I was really happy about my bunt.  That is the only time I have been asked to bunt this year and I got the fist pitch down off of a pretty tough pitcher.  He was throwing submarine so that made it harder to bunt.  Over the span of about 5 games I have been having a lot of good at bats.  I think I have had something like 15 good at bats out of 18.  That is why I have been doing so much better.  My focus has been shifted towards my approach more than the result.  It is funny how the results you want are there when you focus on the approach instead of the outcome.  I heard from a few of my students today and it sounds like everyone is still doing awesome.  Please feel free to email me with questions, video, telling me how you're doing or anything you would like!  I love hearing from ya'll.  It really makes me happy to hear when ya'll are having fun and doing well.

Ouch

So I didn't play yesterday.  I got a weird little injury in the weight room and I couldn't move my head hardly at all.  I wasn't going to do much in the gym yesterday.  Just wanted to get moving around and get the blood flowing some.  I did two sets on the ab roller and my back decided to cramp or something.  Right in between my shoulder blades.  Whenever I turn my head I get the shooting pain right down from my neck to the middle of my back and it is not fun.  Instead of having a crick in my neck I feel like I have a crick in my upper back!  Needless to say I couldn't play yesterday and I am not feeling much better today.  Being a baseball player sure does make it easy for freak injuries.  I have heard of more crazy injuries from MLB players than any other athletes.  One time Sammy Sosa sneezed his back out and missed a few games one time.  There have been plenty of others too.  Hopefully I will loosen up a little bit more before the game tonight so I can play.  I really don't like sitting out!

Benji Johnson is Back

Tonight was my best game of the year.  Yes, even better than the game I almost hit for the cycle.  No, I didn't get 4, 3, or even 2 hits.  Yes, I did have 4 of the best at bats I have had all year and if you include my last at bat from my previous game then you could say 5 of my best at bats..  Today was the first game I didn't hit a ball on the ground.  Big deal for me because I do not like ground balls.  I usually get thrown out!  I like getting a little air under the ball. My first at bat I saw the ball great, spit on bad pitches, swung hard and good ones.  I got to two strikes and he threw me a curve ball and I took the best swing I have taken on a curve all year and almost hit a bomb.  I flew out against the wall in left.  If I would have hit about a millimeter higher on the ball it would have been a bomb but thats ok.  Great AB.  Second AB: I hit a missile to right field.  Usually when you hit the best is when you are using the whole field.  Gives you the most chances for hits!  I had two strikes again and the pitcher threw me a change up outside that I smoked to right for a single.  Thrid AB:  This at bat I walked on four straight pitches.  Fourth AB:  I had a 3-1 count and he threw me a fastball on the outer half of the plate and I hit a really deep ball to right field that got caught right at the wall.  Just missed hitting a homerun on that ball too but I had a great swing and hit it hard to right so I was pleased. 

Baseball is so much better when you forget about results and focus on the task at hand.  I also figured out a small flaw in my stance.  I had too much weight on my back leg.  Pretty simple huh?? HAHA.  I hope to continue my good at bats into the next game tomorrow and in the future.  Good at bats is my focus.  Hopefully with good at bats the results will come on their own!
  

I'm Back

Well I am back after a little break away from the blog.  We just got back from the road a couple days ago.  The road trip was not a very good one as we were 1-5 on that trip.  We did however win our first game back at home last night so hopefully the wins will continue today!  While we were on the road we had a lot of injuries and that set the stage for my first start at third base probably in my entire life.  I was a short stop my first 3 years of baseball when I was a kid then turned into a catcher at the age of 9.  Been doing just that for the last 15 years.  I think I played 3 innings at third in a scrimmage in college.  I hadnn't taken a ground ball probably in about 6 years!  Good thing nothing came my way other than a line shot that I dove for but was just out of my reach.  I kinda wanted to make at least one play just to throw the ball across the infield.  I think that would have been a lot of fun to let one fly.  It was fun playing a different position though.  Little change of pace from catching everyday. 

My hitting woes have continued a little bit.  There is a tape that I have had since I was a little kid and it is a sport psychologist talking to a hitting guy.  He is a well known baseball sports psychologist and listening to that tape has always reminded me of the correct way to approach hitting in practice and in games.  Here is a good piece of advice that I sometimes forget to do myself.  Take batting practice like it is the game.  Full concentration.  Make game situations.  Don't just hop in there and take swings and hop out.  Do it with a focused purpose.  When I do my hitting lessons a lot of times I will end the lessons with game situations.  i.e. hit and run, move the runner, man on third, infield in, infield back, counts, etc.  These are the types of things that get you mentally ready to hit in games.  This is something I forgot about so far this year until I listened to the tape.  I was kinda just swinging in bp and not really focusing like I would in a game.  So my goal is to focus more in bp like it is a game and make situations in my head during bp.  The other thing that the tape reminds me is to stick with my stance and such.  A lot of times when guys start going bad we tend to change our stance or something which just makes us think too much.  He talks about trusting your talents and letting them take over, something I did last year.  This is a big part of confidence.  If you believe you have talent and are able to trust that talent then you will be ok.  I noticed that I was making my goals more result oriented that behavior oriented.  Its not always about results because we can't control results.  We can control our behavior, our approach, and our response to the results.  Instead of saying, "I want to get 2 hits tonight," it's better to say, "I want to have 3 good at bats out of 4 tonight."  We can't control if we get a hit or not but we can control whether or not we have a good at bat.

I hope this is helpful for some of you guys.  The mental part of baseball is so important.  I was reading an article the other day about sports psychology and learned something I didn't know.  A-Rod, Roy Halladay, Greg Maddux, Jason Varitek and many other have used a sports psychologist.  The guy they used was the guy on my tape.  Pretty neat.

Time for a Break

Hey Guys!  So tonight was a bad night for me and my team.  We had a 5 run lead going into the 8th inning and ended up losing the game by 4 runs.  Pretty bad.  There were some things that didn't go our way that contributed to that and we made some bad plays too.  Oh well.  We still have one more game in the series and have a chance to win the series tomorrow if we can grab one more win. 

For me, I had a horrible night at the plate going 0-6 with 2 ks.  I am living proof that thinking too much can mess you up at the plate.  Right now I am pressing a little too much up there and it is hurting my production.  Last year one of the main reasons I had so much success was because I was mentally relaxed almost every at bat.  For you guys that are reading this remember, it is only a game and whenever you fail, it isn't the end of the world and do your best to relax.  Parents, do your best to instill this into your little ball players.  You can help your little guys from pressing by reassuring their talent and reminding them of how good they are and to go out there and play the game and have fun.  The other night I got an email from my mom and it just took a weight off my shoulders and made me feel more relaxed.  I don't know why but it just felt good to have my mom tell me to relax and have fun!  I'm 24 years old and it still helps to hear a loved one tell me to relax and have fun.  Too bad I only took her advice last night and didn't apply that tonight! HaHa!  I will need to apply that every night so I can begin having the success I am capable of having.  Look at Carl Crawford this season.  He was putting so much pressure on himself to do well up in Boston that he started out the year doing horribly.  His first month was probably his worst ever.  A former teammate of mine, Dustin Ackley, started out in double a last year doing kinda bad for his first month or so and he was quoted saying he found himself trying too hard to impress and put too much pressure on himself.  You have to relax your mind to hit well.  Even the best.  Jorge Posada has had a rough year at the plate this year and I don't know if anyone heard what happened in NY, he asked for a day off to clear his head and the next day he did well. 

Right now, that is exactly what I need.  I need to clear my head. Start over.  Tomorrow is the "start of the season" for me.  I need to act like tomorrow is the first day of the year and just erase all the bad games and bad at bats I have had so far.  One thing I never like to know is how my stats look.  I like to base how I'm doing off how I feel in the game and solid contact.  Stats don't always show the truth so I don't like to look.  To help me clear my head I plan to get away from my blog for a few days.  Not sure how long I will stay off the blog but I need to stop thinking about baseball, when I do good or bad.  So for now, I am just gonna play the game and just see the ball and hit it.  Clear Mind!!

Finally

Finally, I have started to get my timing down and get a better approach up at the plate.  The last two nights I have been 3-7 with 2 rbi, a double and two walks.  My double I hit all the way to the wall in left field and my last at bat last night I hit a ball about 400+ feet but it went foul.  Still it was good to see the ball get up in the air as high as it did and go as far as it did since I recently had been hitting so many balls on the ground.  I am not a fan of ground balls.  Those get fielded and I get thrown out!!  You can't drive the ball on the ground so I like to get a little air under my hits. 

Yesterday was a pretty long day for me.  I woke up at 8:30.  8:30 during the season is really early considering that I usually don't get to sleep until at least 1.  Guess what woke me up....barking dogs!  I live with 4 little chiuahuahs and yesterday morning one of them decided to bark at the air for about 10 minutes straight which woke me up.  When I went in the room to see what he was barking at there was absolutely nothing there!  Maybe he saw a ghost or something.  Since I was up I just decided to cook some breakfast, two egg and cheese sandwich with OJ and coffee.  After breakfast I headed off to the gym at 10:30 and stayed there for about 2 hours lifting weights and shooting a little basketball.  By the time I finished at the gym I had just enough time to eat some lunch and sit around for an hour before going to the field for the game. 

About 2 weeks ago I ordered some new bats.  They were due to get here yesterday.  I was sitting in the clubhouse playing playstation against our trainer when our clubbie came in the room and told me that my bats were in my locker and I said, "ok, thanks man."  He stood there for a second then said, "they told me to tell you they are in your locker." So I was like...."ok, cool, thanks."  HaHa, I didn't think anything of it, just thought he was being kinda awkward.  When I finished my game I went to my locker and found my bats there and began to cut the tape of the box to open it up and check out these new sticks.  When I got the box open I quickly noticed that the bats in the box were not the bats I ordered.  I was almost in shock at first.  I thought louisville had sent me the wrong bats!  Then I pulled out a bat and noticed it was a different company (these bats were also really old and crappy by the way).  So my next thought was, ok, they put the wrong box in my locker these must be someone else's bats.  So, I started searching for the label on the box to see the name on the box.  Before I could even find the lable it hit me, the guys on my team had opened my box up, took out my bats and but 4 old crappy bats in there to trick me!  I had seen that trick done when I was with the Braves but it took me a little while to realize that was what was going on.  I started looking around and all the guys were just looking at me and laughing.  It was the funniest thing ever.  HaHa! They said the look on my face when I first looked in the box and saw those old bats was priceless.  Can't believe I fell for that one.

New Lows

Ok, so I know my last post was "Worst Bus Ride Ever", but it actually wasn't...it is now second to the bus ride we had back from El Paso to Amarillo.  I have been on my share of bad busses and had bad rides but this tops them all.  I have been on a bus that lost its breaks going into an intersection with a red light, I have had no ac, I have even slept on the floor of a charter bus from Myrtle Beach to Delaware.  This one was still the worst ever.  First of all I think the shocks on this thing were shot.  And guess what, the air didn't work!!!  Imagine 22 miserable guys in their 20s.  Yea there was a lot of cussing a yelling and jumping up and down.  Whatever you can think of it probably was said.  It was unreal.  7 hours on a bus with no air and bouncing up and down the road like bouncy balls.  I may have slept 2 hours.  Guys were sweating like crazy all through the  ride.  The only good thing was that my bunk had a window in it so I had it all the way open getting a little air on my head.  I had my arm hanging out the window to try to bring in some extra air for the other guys.  They could feel a little breeze when I did that so I did it for a while.  When we got back at 6:30 I went to my room and watched tv for about an hour and then fell asleep until about 12:45.  That is the life in the minor leagues right there!

Now for the game last night.  My game last night is almost laughable.  I was 0-6 with 5 groundouts to the short stop and 1 k.  I don't think I have ever had an 0-6 game in my life.  There is a first for everything I guess.  We won the game something like 14-2 and I also threw out the one guy that tried to steal second on me and I called a great game behind the plate.  I am dissapointed in how slowly my bat is coming around so far but what can you do?!  The only thing to do is keep swinging and be aggressive.  Baseball is such a weird game.  Hits come in bunches and I must have a some really good games waiting for me just around the corner!

Worst Bus Ride Ever

It has been a while since I have posted a blog.  Not much to report on since my last post other than we won the series this weekend.  That is the first series we have won this year I believe.  I had a couple good games and one bad.  I think I threw out at least one baserunner in each game this weekend.  Last night was my favorite.  There were men on first and second and they tried to steal, there was a lefty hitter so I had an open lane to throw to third.  The pitch was a curveball to the outside half of the plate and the hitter took it and I got up really quick and threw it to third.  My teammate at third was one of my teammates with the braves and is probably the best third baseman I have ever seen.  He caught it and put the tag on the runner so fast I think if I blinked I would have missed seeing it!  But he was out and it was pretty awesome.  At the plate I didn't have such a great night.  I was 0-3 with 2 k's and a walk.  I hit a ball really hard on a line right at the third baseman.  That seems to happen a lot to me.  I need to figure out a way to hit it between him and the shortstop! Ha, that would be nice!  The good news on the hitting is that my timing is much better now because I have gone to my no stride.  The one thing that hasn't been working for me yet is my mental approach hitting.  I normally look for certain locations and only swing if the pitch is in that location.  So far I haven't been able to work on it in bp so I haven't been able to get comfortable with it in games yet.  I am going to ask my coach to slow down in bp so I can work on it then to get comfortable with it quicker.  That approach is what really helps me the most because it puts me in control of the at bat instead of the pitcher.  If you go up there just swinging at whatever then he has you.

After the game last night we rode to El Paso on what turned out to be the worst bus ride ever.  We had a sleeper bus which means it had bunks in it for us to "sleep".  The reason I say "sleep" is because it was the worst possible conditions for sleeping.  That bus was bouncing all over the road throwing me up and down in the bed.  I felt like someone was shaking me trying to wake me up the whole time.  I probably didn't sleep more than 30 mins.  There was also this really annoying noise the whole time too.  It sounded like two really big pieces of plastice rubbing and squeaking together.  I don't think anybody slept at all!  And now we are all sitting in the lobby waiting for our rooms to be ready.  Not many happy campers down here right now.  I don't really care personally because I don't think I am catching tonight.  My manager told me I was getting the day off today and would catch tomorrow so I hope that stays true because the bus ride beat me up!

Hope everyone is still doing great with their seasons.  I got an email today about someone hitting another homerun!  I'm glad the guys are doing well, hopefully my homers will come sooner than later!

Sox Win!

We got a win tonight.  It was a great game that we won 9-7.  For me it was kind of a so-so night at the plate.  I am till working out the kinks with my timing.  Had a couple good at bats today where I was right on time then a couple where I was off so it is closer I think.  I am just gonna keep on swiging it and hope to get comfortable with a few more games under my belt.  I did however get 2 hits tonight.  I was 2-5 with an rbi even though I wasn't feeling perfect up there.  It is always good to get those hits in when you aren't feeling quite right at the plate because when you get hot having those few extra hits help to pad the stats a little;)  It was another great night for me behind the plate.  I can't remember if I threw out 1 or 2 guys tonight but I remember one of them for sure.  There was a guy on first and the pitcher threw a curveball in the dirt way outside in the left handers batters box.  I picked it and was thinking I was going to pick him off at first but then when I looked up he had started towards second.  When I saw that I was caught off guard and had to reset myself and I threw a missile to second base.  He was out by about 6 feet!  Throwing someone out is such a great feeling.  I think that was for the thrid out of the inning in the 8th too.  It was a pretty big out. 

Not much else to report on today.  I did go see the new Pirates of the Carribean movie last night and I thought it was really good.  It was way better than the third one.  I didn't think the thrid one was all that great so I was skeptical of this one but it was pretty good.  It isn't a must see but definitely entertaining!

Close But No Cigar

Last night we lost a 1 run ball game.  Those are always tough.  There were so many close calls in the game.  I was in most of them too.  First, one of my teammates hit a ball off the top of the wall in dead center early in the game just missing a homer.  The fence is 429 feet away!  That is a homerun anywhere else.  Another close call was when I threw the ball to second on a stolen base attempt and the guy was called safe before the ball even got there and the runner and my second baseman told me he was out!!  There was another close call involving me while I was hitting.  I hit a ball really high and really far to dead center and it almost went out but didn't quite have enough on it.  Once again, the fence is 429 feet away!!!  Homerun anywhere else but instead it was a just missed homer for me.  I'm ok with that though because my timing is coming around and I hit that ball pretty solid just a little under it so I can take some positive things away from that swing.  The last close call that involved me was a play at the plate.  There was a ball hit to the first baseman who threw the ball to me and I made the tag.  I felt my glove tag the runner on his wrist and all the way up his forearm.  Umpire yells "SAFE!".  The call was a little delayed and he was definitely wrong and I flipped out.  I asked him how he could possibly get a safe call on that play and he told me that he saw the guy's hand get under my left leg and touch the plate before I tagged him.  Wow, check that guy's eyes because he must have the best vision in the world.  There is no way he could have even seen that if it happened because he was positioned behind me with a terrible angle on the play.  That run ended up being the deciding run for them. 

Although it was a tough loss for us I took some good things away from the loss.  I only got 1 hit, 1-5, but my timing on two of my at bats was perfect.  I felt great and I think I may have finally started to get that comfortable feeling in the box.  I am excited to get back out there tomorrow and play another game and continue that good feeling at the plate.  Behind the plate was a good game for me overall.  I was dissapointed in myself for allowing a ball to get by me, my first passed ball of the year, but I was very pleased with my throws.  I threw out 3 guys, one at each base.  And all my throws were accurate and strong.  Throwing people out is huge for a catcher especially when you aren't hitting like you should.  At least you are contributing on defense. 

I am really proud of all the guys I worked with this off season.  I continue to get texts from parents and kids telling me how great they are doing and that is always so great to hear!  Keep up the good work guys!!!

Today is another off day for me so I am about to go eat some sushi.  I can't wait. I haven't had sushi for a while and I absolutely love it.  I might end up getting a boat all to myself. 

5/21 Recap

Tonight I broke out of my two game skid with two hits in four at bats.  Not two pretty hits but they will have to do.  My timing is still not quite there yet.  I am still working on getting that down.  I sure hope it comes around soon because I am ready to start hitting some long balls!  Tomorrow I plan to continue with my normal stride in my first at bat but if I don't feel comfortable I think I will use my no stride approach.  No stride just simplifies everything so I may have to go to that.  We will see.  We finally won a game tonight too which was awesome.  I think we had lost 4 or 5 straight before tonight.  Our starting pitcher did great and our defense was good too.  The team we are playing against has a former major league outfielder on their team who was apparently one of the fastest guys in the MLB when he was there and I threw him out at second today trying to steal.  Pretty awesome! 

Before the game started today I went to the field really early and got in a lot of extra batting practice.  Our trainer met me at the field at 1:30 so I could work on my timing to try to get it down sooner this year so I can get on a good streak.  While I was hitting I took a few rounds from the left side and sure enough I hit one over the fence left handed!  That was probably the first time I had hit on a field left handed since high school and I still got one out.  I didn't hit every ball good but I did take some good swings and hit some balls hard.  Pretty good considering I am not left handed and I haven't really worked on it too much.  I think it is something I could do by the middle of the season if the trainer is willing to keep throwing to me often.  Our pitching coach keeps telling me that a switch hitting catcher is the fastest way to the bigs so if I can pull it off that would help me out a ton.

Tomorrow our game is at 6:00 so maybe I will be able to see the ball a little better.  It is really difficult to see the ball at our field because of the shadows and the lights being so bad.  There were two curveballs thrown to me today that I didn't even see once they got halfway to me.  They just looked like black dots coming in and baseballs are supposed to look white.  So maybe there will be more sun tomorrow with the earlier start time.  My goal for tomorrow when I walk up to the plate is to clear my head and only focus on the baseball.  Sometimes I get too caught up into trying to get my timing down that I forget to hit the ball too!  All the guys I hit with I always tell them to clear their mind and just hit the ball because when your head is cluttered you forget what you are up there to do and that is hit.  So I need to take some of my own advice and do it tomorrow. 

Hope everyone is playing great this weekend.  I just got a text today that one of my hitters hit a homer to dead center! Sweet!

5/20 Recap

Tonight was my 5th game played this year.  It was a good and a bad night for me.  The bad part for me was that I didn't get a hit tonight, 0-4.  Two games in a row without a hit now.  Kinda funny how I start out each year.  This year has started almost exactly the same as last year.  Hit some balls hard, don't get hits, then have a couple bad games and then catch fire.  I'm waiting on the fire to start tomorrow or the next day.  My timing just isn't quite there yet.  I am not quite getting my foot down in enough time to get my swing on time with the ball but I will get it soon.  I plan to meet our trainer at the field tomorrow at 1:30 for some early work to get my timing on.  I want to get it sooner this year than I normally do.  Kinda how Mark Texiera wanted to start the season hotter than normal. I plan to also hit some left handed tomorrow as I am toying with the idea of changing to a switch hitter.  I have hit some in the cage and looked and felt great so it is a possibility.  Not many switch hitting catchers in the majors so it would be a plus for me to be able to do this.

The good that came from tonight's game was my first at bat and my catching.  In my first at bat tonight I crushed a ball right at the third baseman.  He made the play and threw me out but it felt good and my timing was there.  Also, my catching was great.  I blocked a ball and got up and threw out the runner on one play.  That was awesome!  The other good news from tonight is that I know what I need to do tomorrow to get some hits and that is get my foot down sooner!  The thing about playing everyday is that you don't have to gauge your game on hits but you can have a positive game by learning something to help you out in the future.  Tomorrow I will put to work what I realized tonight and see if I can get everything rolling again!  Tomorrow would be a great night to get my first homer of the season!  Maybe I can predict my own future here.  I am predicting a single to right field and a homer to left center tomorrow.  And maybe a grounder up the middle for another single.  So 3-4 night and 2 rbis.  Hope this comes true!  If this year is like last year it will come true because when I got my timing last year I went on a stretch where I was something like 20-35 with about 4 homers.  Until tomorrow....

Off Day

Today was our first off day of the season.  Nothing too interesting happened today.  It was a very productive and fun day though.  I woke up around 9:30 and made my way to chick fil a for a great start to the day where I got a chicken burrito and some chicken minis!! Mmmm, best breakfast.  I just love me some chick fil a.  After my breakfast I came back to the house and realized my host family had recorded my favorite show that I have been able to watch since I got out to Amarillo.  That was so nice of them so the latest two episodes of my show.  It is on amc and called "The Killing".  It is a murder mystery show where this high school girl was killed and the whole show is the two detectives on the case trying to figure out who did it.  I like mysteries.  After my shows ended it was off to the batting cages.  Like I said, off days aren't really off days.  They are more like days to get your swing back if it feels funny.  I ended up hitting for about 2 hours with one of my teammates.  We just hit off the tee and front toss to get our swings feeling good.  One of the funniest things that I have to do to make my swing feel good is to hit left handed.  I don't know why but it just makes my right handed swing better.  I think it is because I am just so natural left handed that I try to recreate that on the right side.  It is weird but it works for me.  I teach myself how to hit right handed by hitting left handed, who would have ever guessed!  When we finished with out hitting I headed over to Subway for a sandwich before hitting the gym.  My gym time wasn't too hard today.  I played a little basketball to warm up and then I lifted a little for my chest and my back.  Then I played basketball again!  I like playing horse when I go to the gym and I don't normally lose but I lost today.  Today I was a little rusty with my shot since I hadn't shot around in over a week.  After I got home and showered up I headed over to the movies.  I absolutely love going to the movies.  Might be the best thing on Earth.  Just sitting in a big theater with a big Mr. Pibb and some pop corn enjoying a good flick is so relaxing to me.  I watched this movie called Priest.  It is about vampires and priests fighting each other.  It was pretty good.  It kept me entertained throughout the entire movie.  I wish it were a little longer though.  It was only about an hour and ten mins!  I like movies to be about 2 hours so I get my money's worth! 

Now it is about time to get some sleep to rest up for the start of a new series tomorrow.  We have a 6 game home stand!  I'm pretty happy to be home for a little while now.  I need a little break from traveling after last week! 

El Paso Recap

Well I'm back in Amarillo now.  We had a quick little trip to El Paso, playing just three games.  Our game Wednesday was at 10:30 a.m.!!! Way too early for me.  I caught the night before which turned out to be a 4 hour game.  Normally when a catcher catches a long game like that or even a normal game the night before a day game he gets the next day off.  I didn't have to catch but I was DH because one of our guys was hurt so I had to play.  I was hoping I would get out of that 1030 game all together but I didn't!  Ended up being a bad game for me.  Two strike outs looking on two bad calls by the umpire.  My timing was pretty off that game too so that is never fun.  I'm still working on getting that consistent timing down.  Timing is the hardest thing in hitting and usually the last thing to come around.  Just takes time hitting pitchers.  I'm sure it will all fall into place here in a week or so.  The Tuesday night game I felt great.  Baseball can be a weird game.  Feel great one day then not so much the next.  On Tuesday I was 3-6 with a double and one or two RBI.  I can't remember how many I ended up with.  That game was crazy.  The wind was blowing in circles at about 20 mph or harder and any ball hit up high in the air was getting tossed around everywhere.  The score ended up being 23-19 I think.  Not really a baseball score and we lost.  It was a pretty ugly game to say the least.  Hopefully this day off we have Thursday will help us shake off the first couple of games and get on the right track starting on Friday.  I think we are 1-5 right now.  The Red Sox started off this season worse than that and then caught fire which we can easily do.  I really like this team and think we have a lot of good players. 

It is getting late here and I am getting sleepy so I think I am going to have to call it a night.  Tomorrow I will have an interesting off day I'm sure so I will fill everyone in on how the "Benji Johnson off day" goes.  They usually are nothing near "off!" 

Back in El Paso

Last night I was back in El Paso.  I spent about 2 months here last year playing for the Diablos so I know this place really well.  This is the first time I have ever played against a former team.  There were only 4 or 5 returning guys from the team last year though so I don't know a lot of the guys on the team.  One of them will be pitching against us today though so that will be interesting. 

We lost our first game against them last night pretty badly.  I think the score was 10-4 or something like that.  Once it gets bad I don't really remember the score.  Also, I came out of the game in the 8th inning because we were getting beat so badly and I was getting beat up behind the plate by some hard pitches in the dirt.  One of them was a fast ball that hit me in my achilles!  Don't ask me how that happened.  So this was my second game of the year and it was a pretty good night for me.  Not numbers wise but for seeing the ball and taking good swings it was a good one.  I know most of you little guys determine a good game by how many hits you get but at my level it isn't always about getting hits but about having good at bats and hitting the ball hard.  Just because you hit it hard doesn't mean you're going to get a hit.  I can attest to that!  I currently have 7 at bats this season, walking twice and getting one hit.  My six outs that I have made are as follows: weak grounder to the pitcher, hard line drive right at the third baseman, grounder to shortstop, hard line drive right at the center fielder, grounder to short, deep shot to dead center that I hit a little bit too high and was caught at the fence (went 400 feet with the wind blowing the ball back towards the field!!).  So as you can see out of 7 at bats I have hit 4 balls really hard but only have 1 hit to show for it.  That is 57% of at bats resulting in a hard hit ball.  Not bad.  I was told at some point during my time with the Braves that if you hit over 50% of your balls hard then you will have a .300+ average.  This game is a weird game.  You can do everything right and not get a hit then all of a suddon 4 straight hits fall somewhere.  So I will just keep playing the numbers and patiently wait for my hits to find the holes like they always eventually do.  Last night was a bad night for me behind the plate.  I had four stolen bases against me and threw out one.  The good news is I figured out why my throws weren't as strong as they should have been and it was because I was not keeping enough weight back on my backside when I do my footwork.  So that is fixed.  The other problem though is the pitchers taking too long to get me the ball which gives the runner a lot of extra time to get there.  I will have to just start calling more pick offs and slide steps to help with that I think.  It is always good to get all the learning out of the way early.  This is basically spring training for us because we had no exhibition games before the season started so we are working out all the kinks.  We play again tonight at 7:05 Mountain time, 9:00 Eastern, and I hope to have a better game behind the plate.  My arm is a little bit sore from all this throwing because I am not used to it yet so I will be popping about 800 mg of Ibuprofen and applying a little icy/hot and I'll be back there behind the dish!  You can't sit out when you don't feel good when you're a catcher because you would be sitting out just about every other day.  Gotta be tough and push through the minor aches and pains.  The guy I will be facing tonight is gonna be a tough one to get a good pitch to hit against because he walks a lot of batters.  Someone told me that he walked the first 3 batters he faced in the first game of the season this year.  Hopefully I will get some strikes to hit but if I walk 3 times that is ok with me too, at least I will be able to see a lot of pitches and get my timing closer to where I want it. 

It is 10:40 right now and our bus leaves at 4 o'clock today so I don't know what I am going to do during the time I have. I am about to go grab some breakfast right now and then possibly walking over to Walgreens to get some Ibuprofen and maybe rent a redbox movie if they have anything good.  There is a gym we can use close by but I'm not sure I want to lift today.  Might just give the ol body a break and just play baseball!  Last year when I was in El Paso playing everyday I think I went to the gym like 5 times the whole time because I let myself get a little lazy!  That ain't gonna happen this year though.  I plan to drag myself to the gym 3 days a week if I have to but hopefully because I will be going more frequently I won't be dragging myself but I will be looking foward to the gym time. 

Everyone keep up the good work.  I have been getting emails and texts from a lot of my pupils and I am so proud of each and every one of you.  All of your hard work during the off season is paying of big time now in your seasons.  Feel free to call, text, or email me when you want.  Send me videos, pictures, question etc...and keep up the great work!

Game Time

It has been a while since I have updated my blog and there is a lot that has gone on since then!  I left Amarillo for home last Thursday, which was our opening day, for Michaela's college graduation.  I had a great time being back at home.  I love Pittsboro!  Michaela's graduation was good, long, but good.  I think everyone there was getting a little restless towards the end because it took almost 3 hours!  It was the largest graduating class ever from NC State so it took them 45 minutes just to seat all the students!  I thought that was kinda crazy.  It was held in the RBC center which was awesome because if it were outside I would have died from the humidity.  Being in Texas I am used to this dry air and when I came home the humidity got me a little bit.  After the graduation we headed over to my sister and her husband's house for a little graduation party.  It was a lot of fun and the rain held off for us, the sun even looked out of the clouds a little too.  It was a really nice day and we had lots of great food. 

Sunday funday.....This is what we call Sundays at the baseball field, sunday funday.  My fun day started at 4a.m. Eastern Time, 3a.m. central.  Amarillo is central time so we will go with 3.  I was up at 3 a.m. and heading to the airport for my early morning flight, 5:15 central time.  I think the night before I left I got about 5 hours of sleep, maybe.  I never really sleep well the night before I leave home especially if I have to leave really early.  I landed in Amarillo at 10:23.  So by this point I had already been up for 7 hours with about a 30 minute nap on the plane.  I drove straight to my host family's house for a little nap.  I'm not the best nap taker in the world so naps aren't really naps for me.  I was going to sleep for a couple hours when I got in but I ended up only sleeping about 45 minutes.  I got up and headed out for some lunch and to the mall.  I needed a black longsleeve shirt because it was chilly yesterday.  When I landed it was 53 degrees!  And windy!  So after I did all that I headed to the field to get ready for my first game.  I knew I was going to be playing that day so I needed to get in the cage a little bit.  We didn't take bp before the game so I just hit off the tee and a little bit in the cage with some front toss.  This was the first game I had played in about 9 months so I was having to keep my heart rate as low as possible because I could tell it was beating a little faster than it needed to be.  Gotta stay relaxed in this baseball.   When I got back there behind the plate it was just like riding a bike.  Like I had never been gone from the game.  I was blocking balls, catching them right, throwing well.  Everything was all good.  Then in the second inning it was time for my first at bat of the year.  I was a lot more comfortable in the box than I thought I would be which was great.  I got a hit on the second pitch I saw.  Line drive to right field and it was hit really hard.  That was a great feeling to get that first hit out of the way on my first at bat.  I didn't get a hit the rest of the game but that is ok.  I hit a really hard line drive right at the third baseman that he caught before I got out of the box and I had a walk so it was a good day. This is basically my spring training during the first week of games I play because I am still getting my timing and recognizing different pitches.  I saw a couple of offspeed pitches that I would have normally crushed but they were the first breaking balls I had seen in 9 months so I was a little late reading them.  After a couple mroe game I will be hitting them hard though.  Nobody attempted a steal on me in my first game so I didn't get to throw anyone out but maybe somebody will try me tonight!  Which reminds me, I am in El Paso right now.  Yep, I flew to Amarillo for one game and we promptly jumped on the bus and drove to El Paso when that game ended.  I was absolutely exhausted.  I was asleep as soon as I got on the bus.  It is a really nice sleeper bus so it has a bunch of bunks in there.  It think 29 beds.  That was a blessing when I walked in the bus.  It is so much better sleeping on a bunk than in a chair!  I am still a little tired as I write this but that is probably because I have been sitting in this hotel for about an hour doing nothing so I'm getting a little sleepy.  Today we do not have batting practice again so we aren't leaving for the field until 5:15.  I will have a lot of down time today!

Lets do something fun.  I want to hear back from some of the little guys on here.  Give me some ideas on what I can do during all my down time on the road.  Remember though, I'm in a hotel and I don't have a car or a video game system.  I have my laptop and some dvds and that's it!  Be creative guys give me something to do!

Lights, Camera, Action

Well today was our last day of practice before the season starts. We didn't do much, just took batting practice for a little bit on the field. The whole time I have been here my goal has been to hit a ball over the fence in right center. This is something I normally do at most fields but the reason this was a goal here is because right center is around 400 feet. Well I got one out in right center today and it felt great! Just in time for the season. Today also marked my last day here for a few days. I am heading to North Carolina to watch Michaela graduate from NC State!! I am pretty excited about coming home for a cuople of days to see everyone. I'm leaving nice and early tomorrow morning. My flight is set for 7:35 from Amarillo to Houston. And I get to RDU at 2:17! Woo Hoo! I also can't wait to hit in my cage either. There are a couple of things with my swing that aren't feeling exactly right and hitting at home always seems to fix those problems so that is good.

So my team's first game is tomorrow night. It is going to be really interesting to see how everyone on my team does after these short workouts we have been doing and the little live pitching we have seen. At least my teammates have all gotten at about 15 at bats though which is way better than what I got! While I am home I am going to have to figure out how to take some batting practice off a fast machine to get myself ready for when I return because I will be starting on Sunday evening. Better be ready! I am pretty excited about it. I feel like I will probably do fine because the last time I got in the box against one of our pitchers I was seeing the ball well and felt pretty good. I'm sure it will all just happen. Once you play this game for a long time it starts turning into second nature once the games start. All thinking is out the window and you just see the ball and hit the ball.

I'm not sure if I will be posting while I'm home but I may. We'll see!

Monday 5/9

Today was officially the last day we get to see live pitching before our games start. That is not cool! We only saw live pitching 3 different days ( I only saw it 2 days). Catchers always get the shaft on that so we just have to be better than everyone else or more patient than everyone else. I guess I will have to just treat this like high school and just jump right into the season with not much preparation. I am doing everything I can on my own to get ready like going to the cage extra with a teammate everyday that I can. It seems to be helping because today I had 2 at bats against pitchers and I really felt pretty good. I was very relaxed in the box. My timing wassn't that far off and I was seeing the ball pretty good.

Let me tell you about our little light situation at the 'ol Amarillo ball park. Apparently they haven't changed them since the place was built 500 years ago! Ha, one set didn't even work and most sets of lights were missing a couple of lights. Our games start around 7 and it gets dark not long after that so I hope these lights get fixed soon so we can see in the 5th inning! The management here only has about 2 days to figure out the problem because opening day is Thursday. At least I won't be here for opening day if they don't fix the problem because I get to fly home to see my beautiful wife graduate from NC State, my bitter rival college!! We are a house divided:) But, it is a great school and I am really proud of her. I think she has pretty close to a 4.0 GPA...Good job Michaela!!!

So, anybody want to know what a Benji Johnson off day is like? Sure you do. Yesterday we were given the day off. I'm not sure why we got the day off because we didn't really need one. Heck we had only been on the field for 6 days! Anyway, my "off day started at about 9 a.m. when I got up. I cooked myself a 2 egg sandwhich and had some yogurt to go with it. Not a bad little breakfast. Yes, I can cook. Hard to believe, I know. A 24 year old guy who can cook, but ask Michaela and she will tell you how good I cook. After breakfast I sat around impatiently for the gym to open at noon. I was knocking the door down right at 12 to get in there and get some activity going. I decided I would play basketball for about 45 minutes to get my day started. After basketball I went to the field to get my baseball work in for the day. I hit in the cage for about an hour or longer an then guess where I went. If you said to the gym you're right! My secnod gym trip was my weight lifting trip which I did for about 45 minutes followed by another hour of basketball!! Some "day off" huh? About a month from now when I get a day off and you read about it I can guarantee it will sound nothing like this one! By then my body will be kinda tired and I will actually be welcoming an off day. After all that work my host family invited me to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. It was awesome. I got prime rib ( if you read my other blogs you will start to notice that I really like prime rib) and veggies and a salad. The rolls down there are really really really good too and they come with cinnamon butter. So if you are ever hungry and you're near a Texas Roadhouse you should definitely check it out. All their food is fresh too. I think they cut their own fries and their own steaks each day. My host family's daughter works there and she was giving us the inside scoop on how things work.

Tomorrow is gonna more easy stuff at the baseball field. I think we are just going to be taking batting practice at 1 and that is it for the day so I will probably hit the gym after that. Maybe something cool will happen.

Actually, something cool hit me yesterday. A cool thought. So in college I had a real good friend who was a diver at UNC and she gave me a Padres jersey for my birthday one time at UNC and it said Johnson on the back and the number 4. Apparently some Johnson guy played for them so she thought that was a pretty neat thing so she got it for me. I hadn't worn it for a while and this offseason I saw it in my closet and I wore it one day. Well, here is what ties all this together. Before I came out here to Amarillo I saw it in my closet and I decided not to bring it. Here is the kicker, the pitching coach here has a direct connection to the San Diego Padres in his father. I'm not sure exactly what he does but apparently his dad is pretty high up in the organization. Here is my question....Did God give me a sign 5 years ago when my friend gave me the Padres jersey that already had my name on the back of it? Time will tell but I feel like maybe me being here is God's will. I guess I wouldn't even be here if it weren't His will. If anyone has any thoughts on this that would be great!

Happy Monday!

Week 1 in the Books

The first week of my most recent cross country journey is complete. Today was our last day of practice for this week as we have been given the day off tomorrow. I'm not too sure many of us really want that day off. I know I for one do not! Once you get in the groove of being on the field everyday it is weird to have an off day. My day tomorrow will probably be filled with working out and hitting on my own. There is no way I am giving myself a day off this early. My body has been responding well to practice. We aren't doing a whole lot but I feel good nonetheless.

Today at practice all we did was take batting practice. It was one of the worst bp sessions I have had in a while. The guy throwing bp today is a player/coach and he could not find the strike zone! I felt bad for the guy. I just stood there and took, and took, and took, and took some more. Finally it got so bad that the manager decided to just step in and finish the round! Ha, yea, it was that bad. It looked like a driving range behind me there were so many balls on the ground at the back of the cage! Good thing I can go to the cage tomorrow and get some good bp off the 'ol iron mike pitching machine. I plan on cranking it up really fast to get ready for seeing pitchers. Right now my timing is just a little off and I want to get that down as quickly as possible. Timing is usually the last thing to get a hold of as I'm sure you can tell just by watching a lot of the big leaguers who take a month to get going. It is usually their timing that is off.

After practice today guess where I went....yep, shopping. If you haven't noticed during the baseball season us baseball players do a lot of shopping. It is hard to fill all the down time we have so what better way than to walk around a mall?! I'm sure you mothers can relate to this, I know my mom can. I can remember when I was really young my mom would be at the mall for hours on the weekend and sometimes come home with nothing. That is how I do it usually. I go to the mall and look at all the nice stuff that the stores like to mark up 500% and not buy a thing! But today was a little different. Kinda like when I needed jeans last week. Today, I needed to find a couple of nice shirts because I always end up wearing the same 2-3 shirts all the time and 2 of those are black. I need to mix it up a little. So I went to my trusty Buckle. No, I didn't get stuck trying on 20 different shirts that wouldn't fit like I did with the jeans a week ago. This was much easier, I wear XL and that is that. I grabbed 4 shirts; green, navy, light blue, and yellow/black. All four fit perfectly but I only wanted two shirts so I narrowed it down pretty quickly. I ended up leaving with the yellow/black and light blue shirts. The 10 min trips into a store are much better than my epic 1+ hour stop last week!

I probably won't post tomorrow unless something cool, funny, crazy, or weird happens since I don't have any baseball activities going on. Who knows, I might just get bored and write something up anyway. Just in case I don't write anything tomorrow I want to go ahead and wish all you mothers a very happy mother's day! Special Happy Mother's day goes out to my mom who I know is reading this! I love you MaMa! To my hitters/catchers make sure you remember to give your mom a hug tomorrow and wish them a happy mother's day!

5 Days Down

It is Friday, day 5, and we had our first morning workout. Not too early, 10 o'clock. I am usually up by 8:30 anyway so not much of a big deal for me. Some of the guys didn't really like getting up that early! Most baseball guys aren't morning people. Today was just defensive drills; pfp's, bunt coverages, 1st and 3rd, etc. Pfp is short for "pitcher's fielding practice." Those guys usually need a lot of work on that. Really the only thing I was getting much work on was my throw downs to the bases on the 1st and 3rd plays. I made three perfect throws to second and three to third. That was a big deal for me because it has been a while since my arm has been that strong. I have had a couple of arm injuries that have slowed me down a bit but now everything seems to be back to normal. After practice I went to the cage and hit of the tee for about 10 mins just to keep everything in check and then I met up with a teammate over at the local cages we are allowed to use for free here in Amarillo. We hit for about an hour doing tees, front toss, and overhand bp. I'm really glad I got to get those swings in because I have been a little jumpy on the field. That is always normal when you first get on a field especially when you haven't been on one in 9 months! So getting in the cage and slowing myself down helped a ton. That is something I will continue to do throughout the season. You really have to take your career into your own hands. Coaches don't always give you as much as you need so you gotta get extra stuff you need done on your own time.

After the cages we went over to the gym and shot a little basketball. There isn't much else to do so I figured I might as well be active instead of just sitting around the house getting fat! My highlight of the day was my 75 foot baseball throw shot that I made......twice. The first one gave me the win in H.O.R.S.E. It is getting close to supper time now. Not too sure what I am going to be eating but I'll figure that out here pretty soon. Might even catch a movie tonight!

Nothing really funny to report on today or yesterday. Pretty normal days here in the Rill0. I did however buy a knife yesterday. I'm sure someone will find that somewhat amusing. I was at the mall and went into a knife store and found this really cool pocket knife so I got it. Never know when you might need some protection when you're going to waffle house at 1 in the morning on the road somewhere!!

Getting in a Groove

It is Wednesday, day 3 of practicing. My body is starting to feel the effects of catching now! My plan this year is to keep up with my protein intake and my workout regimen to see if I can beat the tiredness that comes along with catching. Last year I didn't really take in as many protein shakes or lift a whole lot. It will be interesting to see what kind of difference I see this year.

Yesterday was just more of the same stuff from Monday. Lots of batting practice, which is what I need because it has been a while since I have been on a field. I didn't really feel as good as I did the first day but that is baseball. One day you feel awesome and then the next you can feel terrible. Just gotta remember that from one day to the next you haven't forgotten how to play this game or how to swing your bat. It just happens. Well, today we had bp first and I absolutely smashed the baseball. I got to the field early today and went through my tee routine like I did in the offseason and did my front toss and just went over the little drills that I always do with myself. It is funny how the basics just set you straight. When I took my rounds of batting practice the ball just went flying. I think I hit about 6 balls way out of the park and line drives all over the place. It was a great round and a nice bounce back from the day before. Those are the things that you have to do in this game to be succesful. If you have a bad day one day you can't let it carry over to the next. After batting practice we had live bp which is when the pitchers get on the mound and throw live to the hitters. This is not fun for catchers!!!! We do get a lot of good practice on catching but we don't get much hitting work. Most guys got 5-6 at bats against the pitchers. I got 1.5. Live pitching is the thing I need to see the most right now so I can get my timing down. That is always the hardest thing to get down. Just look at the big leaguers. Some of them take a month to get going during the season and that is because they don't quite have their timing yet.

Not a whole lot more that went on today. I guess I forgot to tell you about my morning. I got up around 9 and ate some breakfast and headed to the gym! Today was an easy workout; forearms, abs, and lower back. Then it was game time. Yep, basketball . I went to the court and shot around for about 30 mins and then a few other gym members came over and wanted to play a little pick up basketball. At first I said no because I didn't want to get hurt but then I decided I wanted to play so I would just be smart. It was just a little 3 on 3 game and my shot was pretty on today. Plus, playing basketball is great for cardio. Watching me play basketball is probably pretty funny because I play in the old school basketball shoes. Yep, Chuck Taylors. And I must say that I could have been a darn good high school basketball player had I played. We played two games, one to 20 and one to 15. I probably had 18 points between the two games and I hit the game winning 3 both games! It was a lot of fun.

My host family cooked a really good dinner tonight that I got to eat. Steak, baked potato and salad. The steak was pretty big too, probably 12 oz or more. I ate every bit of it because I figured my body needed it after the long day today.

I just took in the last hour of American Idol and now I am about ready to hit the sack and it is only 9!

Day One

Today was the first day of baseball for me in Amarillo, but before I tell you about that you have to hear what happened last night. If you don't know much about minor league baseball then you don't know the hotels we have to stay in sometimes. They aren't always the greatest, or even the good ones, or even the ok ones. Well, this hotel falls into the "not even ok" category. Before I got to this hotel I looked up the reviews online and they didn't look too promising. One person said their sheets were dirty and another talked about how dirty the carpet was. So I was mentally prepared before I got here. When I pulled in the parking lot of this hotel I thought I was in a scary movie. My first thought: "this place is sketchy." When I got up to my room my roommate was already there. His name is Boomer and he is a pretty nice guy from Louisiana. Getting a good roommate is always important. A bad roommate can make for a bad year. First thing I did when I got to my room was pull back the sheets. I always do this at bad hotels because the sheets aren't always clean looking and I can't sleep in nasty sheets. Sure enough, my sheets had yellow spots all over.....hmmmmm pee? Kinda gross. Good thing there is a Target not far from this hotel so I went down there and I got a bed sheet, a pillow, pillow case, and a blanket. Problem solved. Well, not exactly. I got the wrong size sheet. I got a queen and my bed was a king so I had to try to make it work. I was able to stretch the sheet over three corners so it wasn't too bad. I had a nice little area to sleep on! Might not have been perfect but it sure was great to know I was sleeping on clean sheets.

Baseball Time:

To play baseball you have to have a physical. The physicals here weren't exactly planned out very well. 20 guys--1 doctor. Yea I didn't get seen for about 3.5 hours!!! At least there was a Chick-fil-a right down the street. After about 1.5 hours I went down there at got myself some breakfast; chicken burrito and 3 chicken minis, YUM!

Once physicals finished I got some lunch and headed to the field around 1:30. Pitchers and catchers had to be there first to do bullpens. This was my first time in the stadium and you can tell that it is pretty old. I think it is 50 years old or so. The locker room is rather small and the field is not in great shape but baseball is baseball. As soon as you step between those lines all that stuff doesn't matter. The clubbie seems to like to keep things clean and tidy which is nice because there is nothing worse than a messy locker room. Since ours is small having it clean and tidy makes it a lot better. After I got all my stuff unpacked I got ready to go out on the field. First time I have played on a field in a long time and it was great to be out there. I think I caught 5 or 6 bullpens and didn't even notice. I'm sure I will feel it a little tomorrow but that is expected. I was just happy to be in my catchers gear catching pitches. After that it was time for BP. Now, this is the first time I have had BP on a field in 9 months. I wasn't really sure what to expect so I kinda went into it with zero expectations. Whatever happened happened. Well, the first round was a little rusty as well as the second round. Then the third round came and I was already locked in. It was like riding a bike. The swing was just there and the ball was jumping to all fields. That was such a great feeling. The sound of a wood bat and to watch that ball fly off your bat is just really special. In my mind the field didn't exist. The ugly field, the old bleachers, the little locker room....none of it mattered. All that mattered was I was holding a bat in my hands and hitting baseballs really hard and it felt good. Tonight I will be going to meet my host family. I spoke to the man on the phone and he seemed really nice so I hope they are pretty cool people and have a nice set up.

Tomorrow should be more of the same from today maybe minus all the bullpens. Hopefully the pitchers take the day off and not as many guys throw so I can let my legs breathe a little because I'm sure they will be a little tired. Nothing can really prepare them for catching, no matter how much weight you lift in the off season! I am planning on going to the gym tomorrow morning and I heard it is a really nice one so I'm looking forward to that.

Round Two

So my Nashville stay has ended and I am now in Fort Smith, Arkansas. I must say that my stay in Nashville was a much needed "vacation." I put vacation in quotes because of this: 7 days in Nashville, 10 hours in the gym!! So although I got to visit my buddy, Weston, I still had to get my work done. The gym I went to was pretty cool. It was called Urban Active and it had half of a basketball court inside. Everytime I lifted I would get in about 30 mins of basketball too; fun way to get in the cardio.

Scary Stuff....

On Sundahy afternoon the weather in Nashville turned pretty scary. We were under a tornado warning for the entire day and I think throughout the night as well. When we got out of church on Easter there was a loud sirene going off and I immediately thought of the tornado alarm from grade school when we would get in the hall and kneel down against the wall and cover our heads. The next couple of days were filled with bad weather and scary nights. I can't remember the night-I want to say it was Tuesday night-but, I was up watching a movie on TV and watching the weather on my computer at the same time. I was tracking a really bad storm that was heading straight for us and I wanted to be awake when it hit in case there was a tornado. I have never seen a tornado and I figured I would have a better chance of getting to a safe place if I were awake. Well, the weather got there and it was pretty bad. Eventually I couldn't stay up any longer and went to be with the weather still kinda bad. The scary thing about going to bed at Weston's house is that there is a tree about 2 feet from the guest bedroom so if a tornado wanted to knock the tree into my head it could. Not a comforting feeling when you're going to sleep. So, I don't think I was completely asleep and if I was I hadn't been out for long when the loudest wind I have ever heard in my life kicked up. It sounded like a train was going doing the street and I went straight into "fight or flight" mode. I lept out of bed (not sure what I was gonna do) and went for the bedroom door(I guess I was just trying to get away from that tree). As I was going towards the door I fell into my suitcase and jumped right back up and raced out of the room. Remember, I am an athlete in pretty good shape. My heart rate sits around 58 bpm and my guess is that my heart rate jumped to about 135 bpm in this 10 second race between me and the tree. Luckilly nothing happened. It was apparently just some really strong wind but no tornado thankfully. I went back to bed and probably didn't get to sleep for about 30 minutes or more.

Final Night

For my last night in Nashville my friend wanted to take me to this great restaraunt downtown called J Alexanders. It was AMAZING. But before we get to the food let me tell you about my interesting trip to Buckle at the mall. Michaela, if you're reading this you will probably get the best laugh from this story. The last pair of jeans I bought was from men's wearhouse about 2 years ago and that was a lucky find. Since 2009 I have been working out really hard on my legs and butt trying to get them as bulky as I can since I am a catcher. Us catchers need big thighs and butts to get us through the season. So we headed to the mall to find some jeans at Buckle for me. This is after I tried on about 3 pairs of jeans at TJ Maxx that fit me like a pair of spandex. Ok, so my waist size is a 34 and length is the same. Buckle is supposed to be really good with their jeans and fitting you, helping you out, having whatever you need to fit your body, etc. Apparently they don't have much of a section labled "Benji Johnson." What I thought was going to be a quick trip to grab a pair of jeans and go eat dinner turned into us being there after the store closed. We were there for over an hour!!! First, this guy named Jessie who worked there helped me pick out some jeans that I would like and had me try them on. I think I started with 5 different pairs which were all different makes and styles. Well, sure enough, they all fit like spandex. Funny thing is most of them were too big in the waist too. But to try to fix the problem of the tight legs we decided to try out a 36 which ended up being great for my legs but huge in the waist. No way I was pulling those off. That's what 6 pairs so far? K, so Jessie went on to pick out 2-3 more pairs for me that he thought would be better suited for my legs. Nope. Not at all. Just the same. So now we are to around 8-9 pairs of pants tried and failed. I was about to just give up and get maybe a cool t-shirt when this other dude decided he would try to help me. I think he prides himself in fitting guys' jeans. So this guy had this brilliant idea that the problem wasn't that my legs were too big but that they were slender and small!!! REALLY? Was he serious? Apparently he hadn't seen me try on 9 pairs of jeans already. I decided to humor him and try on the jeans he selcted only to show him that my legs were way too big for those. I thought the seems were gonna pop! So this prompted him to go on a mission to find me a pair of jeans, I mean this guy was determined. He brought me two pairs, didn't work. Another pair, didn't work either. Finally instead of me having time to get out of the dressing room he started hanging jeans over the door. I'm gonna just guess here but I think we are at around 14-15 pairs tried on now. I was putting them on and taking them off all in the same motion. I mean it was getting to the point that I was just cracking up at each pair of jeans this guy brought me. Then finally, the pair appeared. Probably one of the coolest pair of jeans I have ever seen. They actually fit! I was so relieved! After over an hour of trying on jeans the determined little guy found a pair I could wear! I honestly have no clue the number of jeans I tried on at this points. It had to be 20+. In the end I got to walk out with a great pair of jeans and one of the funniest mall experiences I have had.

Now, for the best part of that night. J Alexanders. This place was great. If you are ever in Nashville...GO! You are really missing out if you don't. It is a little pricey but well worth cost. I think they are spread out in TN so if you come accross one you should stop, you won't regret it. I had the prime rib and mac'n'cheese and for dessert and piece of chocolate cake with chocolate syrup and vanilla ice cream. It was such a good meal. That prime rib just melted in my mouth. Loved it!

Present Time

I am currently in Fort Smith, Arkansas. If you have ever seen the movie True Grit it is the same Fort Smith from the movie. I plan on going for a little tour of the historic sites tomorrow morning before I make my final leg of this long haul to Amarillo. I have 8 more hours to drive tomorrow to get to Amarillo and I have to be there by 6 for a meeting! The sun is gonna be coming up early tomorrow!

Once I get to Amarillo and baseball gets started I will be posting probably everyday so be looking forward to that.

Road Trip

Here goes, first blog ever......

Yesterday was the first day of my trip out to Amarillo, TX. My day got started a little later than I had planned because of the fence Michaela and I were having built around our back yard. I didn't want to leave until it was finished and we thought it would be done around 11 but it ended up being after 12 when the guys finished up. Once they finished I headed over to my parents house to say my goodbyes until I return home. My parents, Michaela, my sister Megan, and her little daughter Brighton were all there to tell me goodbye and give me hugs and kisses! This is always the hardest part of the year for me because I have always been really close to my family and a big homebody.

After the hugs and tears I got in the car and headed off towards Amarillo. First stop- Nashville. Or so I thought....About 7 miles down the road I thought that I may have forgotten a catcher's mitt at home so I pulled over and checked my car and sure enough I did. So, only 10 minutes away I had to turn around and go right back to get my mitt. Once I got my mitt I was off, for real this time. First stop- Nashville. My best friend from home, Weston, lives there so I decided to leave a few days early to hang out with him. When I got in last night we went straight to Outback Steakhouse for a good dinner. Needless to say I was starving after an 8 hour drive. I had a blooming onion, one of my favorites things, and a ribeye with a sweet potato and a salad. It was delicious!!

Since today is Easter we decided to go out and eat a great restaurant here in Nashville before church. The place we ate is called Monell's and it is a family style restaurant that serves great southern food and the menu today was incredible. We had biscuits, rolls, chicken casserole, green beans, asparagus casserole, corn pudding, fried chicken, mashed potatos, and strawberry pie. So it was more like a lunch but we ate it at 10 and it was awesome!! One of the best meals I have ever had. After breakfast we headed off to church and had a great Easter service. The pastor was really funny and they had a really good band playing some great music. It was a great Easter Sunday. I even played a little catch today too. Always gotta get some baseball in no matter where I am!

I will be here in Nashville for a few more days then on the road again. I'm not sure whether I will go straight to Amarillo from here or stop at one more place on the way. All depends on how far the drive is from here.

I'll keep you posted! Happy Easter!!!!! Jesus is risen!