SLU baseball likely to spend much time indoors preparing for season – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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With the official start of college baseball practice Tuesday came the always-possible threat of snow on the ground and the inevitable decision to hold the first St. Louis University workout indoors.
That meant packing up and heading to a facility south of the city. It’s an inconvenience but part of the annual challenge coach Darin Hendrickson and many college programs in cold-weather locales face every year.
“I always joke that if you want an accurate weather forecast, you ask a baseball coach,” Hendrickson said.
Preparing for an outdoor sport with indoor workouts is not ideal but part of the job. The Billikens open the season Feb. 18, and Hendrickson anticipated having to hold practices indoors for most of the first two weeks of preseason.
Tuesday provided a chance to enjoy fresh air as the temperature hit 50 degrees, but the long-range forecast did not look as optimistic.
“It’s gotten better through the years but it’s certainly an obstacle,” Hendrickson said. “It’s still the hardest month of our season for a lot of reasons. We’re an outdoor sport, not meant to be played indoors, but there isn’t a player on the team who isn’t used to it.
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“We don’t acknowledge it almost. We wait for warm days and wish they were here. You always have a practice plan. But it’s way different than it used to be. You weren’t outside much, if at all. The first day on grass might have been the day before your first game.”
SLU typically schedules its first weekend of games at a tournament down south. Sometimes the Billikens are out of town the first two weekends. This season they will start with three games against Bowling Green in Hoover, Ala. Next is a single game at Southern Illinois Edwardsville and then the Billikens go to Tulsa for three against Oral Roberts.
Hendrickson makes use of various facilities when the Billikens have to stay indoors. SLU uses the practice gym inside Chaifetz Arena as well as a structure with batting cages at the baseball stadium that was built since the arrival of Hendrickson and athletics director Chris May.
“That’s something we use in groups and use almost every day,” Hendrickson said. “It’s been a blessing, to say the least. When I got here, we were all over town. It’s very draining and demoralizing for the kids. When I sat with Chris and he said what do we need, I said a functional daily place and we hit that right on the head. I couldn’t imagine us using it any better, even in great weather.”
Hendrickson said that inside practices in the winter are not an excuse for anything, especially considering that hundreds of teams face similar circumstances. But he said the advantage goes to teams that can practice outdoors most of the year.
“It’s not like we’re a million years behind, at all,” he said. “We won’t lose a (early) game because we didn’t have time to get ready.”
He said the main area where players seem to be impacted by long stretches of indoor practice is hitting, due to a shortage of live batting practice. SLU has been known to have slow offensive starts to seasons as well as slow starts with wins and losses.
The Billikens started 1-7 in 2018 but finished 37-20 and reached the …….
With the official start of college baseball practice Tuesday came the always-possible threat of snow on the ground and the inevitable decision to hold the first St. Louis University workout indoors.
That meant packing up and heading to a facility south of the city. It’s an inconvenience but part of the annual challenge coach Darin Hendrickson and many college programs in cold-weather locales face every year.
“I always joke that if you want an accurate weather forecast, you ask a baseball coach,” Hendrickson said.
Preparing for an outdoor sport with indoor workouts is not ideal but part of the job. The Billikens open the season Feb. 18, and Hendrick…….
With the official start of college baseball practice Tuesday came the always-possible threat of snow on the ground and the inevitable decision to hold the first St. Louis University workout indoors.
That meant packing up and heading to a facility south of the city. It’s an inconvenience but part of the annual challenge coach Darin Hendrickson and many college programs in cold-weather locales face every year.
“I always joke that if you want an accurate weather forecast, you ask a baseball coach,” Hendrickson said.
Preparing for an outdoor sport with indoor workouts is not ideal but part of the job. The Billikens open the season Feb. 18, and Hendrick…….