Rest for the Weary

The Vipers got a well deserved off-day today after traveling all day yesterday following a sweeping success of two wins in Erie. This is a topic that always sparks debate. Someone out there is wondering (I see your hand raised), wasn't Sunday a day off? Why didn't they practice today?

Most do not consider a travel day to be a day off. It's the darndest thing, but travel takes a lot of you, even though your mostly sitting around. I could never explain it myself, but having done plenty of sports traveling myself, I know it's true.

When you have a front office job, you have to push through it. For those who don't know, I am also the voice of the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings baseball team over in Harlingen. Last season featured 80 games in 82 days with bus trips including Amarillo (15 hours) and San Angelo (8 hours). Actually I found Laredo (3.5 hours) to be tougher since it's stop and go sleep, if there's any sleep on the bus at all. Every day over the summer I was in the office at 8:30 a.m. and usually not getting home until sometime between 11 and midnight. If I was on the road, I still worked from there, even from the bus sometimes. It made for some long days. There was one time I got off the bus in Harlingen at 7 a.m., went straight to get an oil change, home to shower and change and then onto the office. It's the life I've chosen.

The players and coaches don't have it easier, though. You might say, well, they get to sleep late on that off-day while I have to be in the office. Perhaps (unless they have community appearances scheduled), but remember, what the players do takes a major physical toll. I'm sitting down a lot. As for the coaches, they have to digest a lot of information about their opponents and themselves and get it all ready so the players can be put in the best position possible to succeed. I can tell you Coach Finch didn't sleep late today. He swung by the office in the morning. You know he's getting ready for Sioux Falls.

The players need to let their bodies recover, especially with this stretch of seven games in 10 days coming up. With that said, the Vipers do have two practices tomorrow, but only one is a full practice. The other is more geared to working on specific things.

If you're wondering, why do we do it? Or better, how do we do it? I can answer that. Eyes on the prize. We're all trying to get to the next level. We're going to work our read ends off until we get there and then work harder to stay there.

But it is possible to over work ourselves too hard because we want to get there so badly. And that's where the day off comes in. Sometimes you need to force young guys to take rest to avoid burnout.