Every day, the sun is creeping out just a hair more than the last and the temperature feels a little warmer than winter’s bitter cold, both accompanied by the first feelings of spring in the young 2008.
As this ageless tradition is making its way to our doorstep, another pastime is on its way into our heart’s and minds – baseball, sweet baseball.
From the spring training of the professionals to the indoor try-outs in high school gymnasiums, the greatest nation on Earth is getting pumped to play its national game. It’s no different at Northeastern, whose team is lead by legendary coach Neil McPhee – who is nowhere close in age to the game itself, but his 23 years at the helm are longer than some undergraduates’ life spans.
“When you look back on it, every coach would like to have success in the program, and I think that we have a certain level of success with the program. And from a coaching perspective, what that says is that we’ve been able to get players who have been able to succeed, sometimes overachieving at times and being extremely competitive,” McPhee said. “It’s always the players and it always will be the players, in terms of whatever degree of success a program has.”
As is now tradition, our Huskies open the season against the Boston big club, the Red Sox, in sunny Fort Myers, Fla. Though the exhibition game holds no weight in the grand scheme of the Huskies’ season, it’s always a thrill – our classmates against the world champs, Huntington’s heart against Boston’s beloved.
“It’s as much nervous excitement as they’ll ever experience – the event itself superceded the game,” McPhee said. “Just the experience of stepping on the field against the world champs is just an amazing lifestyle experience.”
Once the game is done, the Huskies will begin their 2008 campaign (their third in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) for the team) with hopes of avoiding a repeat of last season – which saw them missing the postseason for the first time in 15 years.
“We did prove to ourselves that we are able to compete at the upper end of the CAA with the ’06 team, and we have to develop a consistency that keeps us in the upper half of the conference.”
Last season’s 24-22 (12-17 CAA) placed the Parson pounders eighth in the league, a smidgen out of playoff contention. The team has seen some stellar players leave, particularly captain Dan Milano, who lead the team with 13 homers and 48 runs batted in last season.
Returning is veteran outfielder Mike Tamsin, who lead the team with a .366 batting average, a .446 on-base percentage and 63 hits, while only striking out 17 times in 172 plate appearances.
Not to be outdone are two other Husky sluggers – captains Josh Porter and Mike Lyon. Porter was third on the team in hitting, behind Tamsin and Bryan Roberts (although Roberts had only 11-plate appearances last season). Porter is solid at the plate and even more solid at first-base, where he made only one error a year ago (three in his husky career) for a .997 fielding percentage in 2007.
Lyon was the only Husky to play in all 46 games last season, his first as the starting shortstop, and a prime contributor to his breakout season – 10 home runs, 33 RBI and a team leading 13 doubles and 26 extra-base hits.
The strengths of this team are a combination of its youth (Milano was the lone-player to leave the program) and experience. Along with this, the starting pitching is the deepest it’s been in years.
“It is a legitimate D1 staff and all the pitchers can play the various roles,” McPhee said. “Right now we feel comfortable with five-six pitchers in that rotation, so we have a lot of options over the weekends [against CAA opponents this season].”
In 2006, the Huskies first CAA season, they finished third in the conference. It showed McPhee Northeastern could be competitive in the tougher CAA conference.
“What it proved to me is that we were able to compete at that level of college baseball, the challenge is that we need to be consistent doing that,” McPhee said.
After 23 years at the helm, McPhee knows his team inside and out. And it’s not surprising, as the coach is an institution at Northeastern.
“I’m an alumnus, I’ve played on the same field, I am one of them,” McPhee said. “That really has a lot of meaning to me.”
Let’s hope this season means a lot.
– Matt Foster can be reached
