Silly baseball players

            When the field is not chalked, the lights are not on and the cleats are not laced tightly to their feet baseball players have a reputation of being childish. Some people think watching the game of baseball is boring and pointless, but when grown men act like little kids there is no better form of entertainment.

            Typical practical jokes in baseball consist of a pies to the face, chewed bubblegum stuck to a teammates hat or moving late arriving teammates’ gear throughout the locker room. Even though baseball fans may not witness such jokes on the field there seems to be a new movement of teams making funny videos and posting them on YouTube.

            Earlier this season some of the University of Northern Colorado baseball players decided to make their own series of videos to promote their first home conference series against the New York Institute of Technology Apr. 13-14. There are five videos total, and each is more hilarious than the next. Bear tipping, bear baseball news, Klawz is ready, game day and pack the park day generated a great turnout for the Bears home conference opener. The Bears ended up sweeping the series against NYIT, and in every game they scored over 10 runs.

            Baseball is a considered a game of failure, and if players and teams as a whole don’t take the time to step back to enjoy themselves and the game it could become extremely frustrating to play. The good thing is that players do enjoy the game and that makes for great entertainment.

Spoiled Home Opener

           This past weekend the UNC baseball team was spoiled in their regular season opener thanks to North Dakota State. UNC struggled to manufacture runs and keep the Bison from lighting up the scoreboard during the four game sweep.

The University of Northern Colorado has failed to start a season with a winning record under second year head coach Carl Iwasaki. The Bears were unable to score over five runs while North Dakota State never scored less than 11.

Last year the Bears started the season 3-20 before turning their season around with a 19-7 conference record. In the past two seasons the Bears have gotten off to a slow start, but have always managed to be successful when it comes to conference play.

            Spirits were high going into the season opener, but not once did the Bears have a lead against North Dakota State. UNC did not score a run until the seventh inning of the first game and tacked on two more in the ninth. Unfortunately, it was not enough to overcome the nine-run deficit.

            On Saturday and Sunday the struggles continued for the Bears. During the windy double header Saturday the Bears were outscored 29-6 and committed five errors on defense. In the series finale UNC scored one run in the first and one run sixth while North Dakota scored in every inning but the sixth.

The Bears do not have time to dwell on their opening weekend losses. UNC must prepare for a tough series in Pullman, Wash. against a well-rounded Washington State.

The First Pitch

The purpose of this blog is to give readers in-depth coverage of the University of Northern Colorado's baseball team in its 2012 season. My experience in journalism includes covering and writing sports stories for the UNC student newspaper, The Mirror. I have been writing for The Mirror since fall 2011. I am looking forward to a summer internship with the Windsor Beacon to gain more experience in journalism. 

This blog is part of an in-class project in which students chose and cover a beat throughout the semester. For my beat I chose to cover the UNC baseball team season which begins Feb. 18 at Jackson Field. I have never covered a beat before, but while covering this beat I hope to become an overall better reporter. 

As a journalist I feel my strength is in sports writing because of my experience in the sports reporting community. I feel my weakness as a journalist is not being well rounded in different fields. The only reporting I have done is sports.

A blog as a journalist is a great tool to have. I am very excited about this blog because it is my first opportunity to gain experience with blogging. I feel confident that I am going to do well with this blog because it covers a sport that I am very familiar with.