Sports: It All Started with a Closer.

A journalists story of capturing Avila's winning season

 

New:  Video link of this story: https://vimeo.com/65618786



I grew up on Vin Scully and the Dodgers.  Weened on players such as Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, and Dusty Baker.  My father used to listen to Scully call the games most evenings in summer.  Then baseball sort of evaporated in my life for a time, replaced first by marriage (it does that to you sometimes), then by basketball.  I followed the Mariners in 1995 when they had that miracle season of coming back from 13 games out of first place starting in August to tie the Angels in the American League West by season's end.  It appeared baseball would always come back and mark the time of my existence.  So when I took an introduction to Journalism class at Avila University, it's not a far stretch to my covering baseball.  Like the Mariners of 1995, I would find my self fortunate enough to be the one to capture something magical.

It all started with a closer.

I was sitting in my journalism class.  Professor Snorgrass was covering photography and how to make a photo tell a story.  In a moment, he suddenly sent us out onto campus.  "Go out there and photograph something going on right now." he said sending the group of us out to find a story.  It was class time for most, and the campus seemed desolate.  The campus was about as empty as my coffee cup in late morning.  Not knowing what I would find, I had a thought of baseball.  Perhaps practice was happening.  Perhaps there was something going on that would be story worthy.

I wandered over to the baseball field.  It was empty.  No game.  No practice.  But something caught my eye.  A lone player was in the dugout adjusting his footwear.  A bat and duffel sitting beside him.  From the edge of the home team dugout, I snapped a quick photo with my Nikon digital.  I wandered over to the player who'd exited the dugout by this point, and took up a conversation.  It was closer Steven Johnson.  Hailed from northern California and known for his mean curveball.  I quickly compared him to then Mariners pitcher Jamie Moyer.  He had shown up 30 minutes prior to practice to devote some extra time to working out.  Dedication.  I had my story.  Returning to class, I told my instructor what I had come up with, and he seemed satisfied, if not impressed with my interview and story.  Although I had covered a campus ministry story prior to this (also published in the Talon), this would be my first story created from the moment of opportunity.  I submitted the story to the Talon as a last minute "stop the presses" sort of urgency.  The problem was that my photo was taken too far away and came up grainy in the magazine.  They couldn't use it.  But the baseball bug had bit me, reinfecting it's fever deep within my soul.

Matt Ricketts fly

I returned to the field on April 9th.  My journalism assignment wasn't even baseball.  It was capturing both a single photo story as well as a 6-photo story.  What better place than a baseball game?  I must have taken 70 photos of that event.  I had learned to put the lens of the camera through the netting of the backstop to focus in on the plate or the pitcher.  I'd also began planning strategies for anticipating where the play would be.  Avila was tied in the first.  Quinn Barrett pitched a solid game through the 5th.  Matt Ricketts hit a fly ball into left center.  But it was a pitcher's duo up into the 7th and final inning.  Avila ended up losing with a barrage of bats by the opposing team. 

My single photo story was of Quinn Barrett (left) where I was able to capture him releasing the ball.  I also took a pitcher's sequence with Steven Johnson completing both my single photo and my 6 photo story. 

The pitching sequence of Steven Johnson can be seen within this blog below, or in "April". 

Quinn Barrett's photo (above) is now displayed in Dallavas in the Communications hallway, where it will likely remain for the next few years.

The real magic came on the very last game of the season.  My journalism assignment was to do an actual news video story.  Sticking with the baseball theme, I decided to again cover Avila baseball.  I looked at the schedule and saw their last regular season game was on a Sunday.  One of my classmates informed me they'd already made the playoffs, so I figured the story angle would be about how Coach Cronk would be approaching this game.  Would he play his starters hard hoping to keep the mojo going, or limit them and keep them rested in time for the tournament?  It wasn't a great news story, but it was decent considering all that could be going on around Avila near finals week.  But what ended up happening is just one of those lucky turns that shower a journalist with the gift of a great story.  Their double header on Sunday was rain delayed.  Their first game was played that evening, but their final game was rescheduled for Monday at noon.  I wasn't able to attend Sunday's game in what turned out to be an exciting emotional rugged event where defense and pitching defined the moment and the final play was getting Baker University out at the plate in the final inning preventing a tie, and winning the game.  It ended up setting the stage.  I found out just an hour before the game, that a win would place the team in 1st in their conference for the regular season.  It suddenly wasn't about how the coach would play them.  It became about whether they'd win and in a sense be champions in their conference. 

Catcher Nick Fields between plays

I went over the field with my video and digital cameras.  I took some preliminary reporting of myself, as well as batting practice.  I finally caught up to Steven Johnson being the familiar face, and acquired an interview with him.  Surprisingly, he gave an awesome interview that seemed to echo Coach Cronk's very philosophy of approaching each game individually.  I was also able to interview the coach.  I learned not only how personable he is, but also what he's done with this first year as Avila's men's baseball coach.  I had most of my video story.  Now I just needed to photograph the game, take video, and see what happens.


The game resembled many of the others.  The main battle was pitching.  Baker came ahead with one run in the 1st, and Avila tied it later in that inning.  Then it was all about pitching.  Jason Paul came in and just simply dominated.  I was able to capture my first strikeout on video with him.  But it was the bottom of the 7th that things really started to happen.  Shane Cobert got on base, was walked to second, and a sacrifice fly moved him to 3rd.  Standing in my familiar spot on the 3rd base line, I had my digital camera sitting on top of my video camera focused on home plate to capture the possibility of the winning run or play happening there.  I didn't want to lose the moment.  A sacrifice fly was hit and Colbert tagged and sprinted for home.  I captured the event on video and snapped a photo of his head first dive for home.  I had captured it.  Now it was all about celebration as the entire team dog piled the field.  Professor Snorgrass suddenly emerged by my side.  "Did you capture it?" he asked.  I looked back at him with a smile ear to ear.  "Oh yes!" I said.  "I got it all!"  I jumped down onto the field and took more video, and in the end was able to interview the coach.  I would've also interviewed Shane Colbert, but lost him in the crowd.  

In the end, I had my story.  Arguably, it would've been Avila's story of the decade.  I went back to the lab, edited through 22 minutes of video and another 50 photographs.  I caught Jason Paul striking out the other team.  I had filmed the final play at the plate.  I captured an amazing moment of Coach Cronk catching his son who leaped in his arms in celebration.  There were no major production of multiple film crews and angles.  There was no editing team to put this together.  It was all mine. 

And when I look back on the events of discovering Steven Johnson in the dugout that day in March that set the chain of events that ended with celebration, I come to realize that unlike most games that begin with the starting pitcher, my story started with a closer.

The News video can be seen in the separate blog below.

Travel: Alaska to Avila

Travels From Alaska to Avila

Sometimes life takes you on a strange journey that leads you into places you never thought you'd go.  Last year, I was happily attending the University of Alaska, Southeast (UAS) in Juneau as well as holding down full time employment with the US Forest Service.  Although the Forest Service job wasn't what I expected as it kept me behind a desk, I did enjoy UAS very much.  I was majoring in English with an emphasis on Literature and the Environment.  Like many of my fellow students there, I had this dream of becoming another nature writer in Alaska. 

Don't think that's an original idea, however.  Alaskan outdoors writers are about as common as universities in Kansas City. 

Aside from the constant rain in summer in the Alaska's southeast, there was plenty of outdoors to be had.  While in Ketchikan, I hiked many trails, did a little camping, and even happened upon some pretty cool picturesque views, such as McConnell Lake (pictured - right).  When I moved to Juneau to continue school, I found the campus actually had a view of a glacier in the distance from a pavilion (pictured above).  Like Avila, everyone seemed to know each other in a short time.  I got to be known as the "pun master" due to a nature paper I wrote about living in Anchorage entitled "Anchored into Place".  One class, we even had a weekend field trip in February (in Alaska!!) where we hiked over ice 3 miles to a cabin to spend the time concentrating on "Travels in Alaska" by John Muir, who'd been all over the southeast.  We'd discovered we couldn't get the heater going, and much of the weekend was spent just keeping warm.  But my fellow classmates were of Alaskan upbringing and took the event as an adventure.

I didn't sleep much that night.

By semesters end, I had a personal issue come up with family in Kansas City, and decided to move here permanently, having to change schools.  With my Catholic upbringing, I discovered not only that Avila was a welcome change, but that my decision to go from English to Communications has been extremely satisfying.  With English, you study a lot of authors, write papers, and really wait a long time to see the labors of your efforts.  With film and journalism, I discovered it was appealing to my creative side enabling me to produce and write things with almost immediate response.  I happened upon Avila's baseball team at a time of great successes and celebration, and my short films were fun to create.  Avila may not have the pristine lakes, rainforests and abundant wildlife around it, but it has been a place that has been easy to call home.