To many, February is the month that plays host to the Super Bowl, the month the Daytona 500 happens or the month when basketball reigns supreme. For the Ball State University baseball team, the month February marks the start to its 2008 season.
The Cardinals will leave the snow and cold weather of Indiana for their annual trip all across the south. Friday marks the first game as they will play the University of Alabama-Birmingham in a four game series during the weekend with a double-header on Saturday.
The Cardinals won the Mid-American Conference Tournament two years ago but followed it up with a 20-34, 6-19 in the Mid-American Conference season, which placed them sixth in the West Division. The struggles of last season have left the team hungry to get back on the diamond.
"We're tired of being here freezing; we're ready to get back out there," fifth-year senior closer Kyle Heyne said. "This is the most excited I've been to play here my whole career."
Heyne's Ball State career almost came to an end after last season. He was drafted in the 27th round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Minnesota Twins. However, when negotiations with the Twins never picked up he decided to end the speculation and announce he would be back for his senior season.
He said he wanted to come back to win another MAC championship and get his degree right away. Before Ball State can start its campaign for its second MAC Championship in three seasons it will have to play away from Muncie for almost a month.
The Cardinals first home game won't be until they play host to Anderson University March 18. In the 26 days until that game Ball State will travel all around the south playing in 16 games.
A large majority of those teams will be local to the south. Heyne said a team who is native to a state that is warm year round has a distinct advantage against a team like Ball State.
"It's difficult to an extent," he said. "We're inside not outside so our outfielders don't get to field fly balls, our infielders all they get is ground balls off the floor inside the [Cardinal Fields and Sports Complex]. It's different being outside fielding balls off the grass and outfielders fielding balls up in the sky for the first time in a couple months."
Ball State coach Greg Beals said the NCAA has taken a step to limit the advantage southern teams who get to play host to northern teams during the first month of the season have.
"This is the first year we have had a uniform start date," he said. "It's an attempt to level that playing field early in the year. But still Friday is going to be our first time outside and its a game. That's going to be a challenge compared to UAB who's been practicing outside."
While Beals said winning is always preferred the goal of these non-conference southern games is to improve for when the MAC season comes.
"We're going to go down and try to win ball games but the development of our program is first and foremost," he said. "... More than anything we are trying to develop and move forward each weekend."
Beals said the goal each season is to win a MAC Championship. The Cardinals fell short of that last season with the 6-19 MAC record, which caused them to miss the MAC Tournament. Center fielder Wayne Bond Jr. said this is why he's looking forward to the MAC season more so than anything else.
"Conference kind of whopped us last year and coming into this year I feel we have a point to make," Bond said. "Go out and make the statement last year was a fluke and that wasn't Ball State baseball."
Beals said when looking back at the MAC season last year his team came out of it wounded.
"An analogy is we feel like we got a bloody lip last year and we all have that taste in our mouth," he said. "We want to get back at it and prove to people that we are better than the season we had last year."
One thing the Cardinals have going for them this year compared to last is experience. Practically every starter returns from last season. Outfielders Bond, Kory Benbow and Ryan Chenoweth are all back. In the infield second baseman Jeremy Hazelbaker, first baseman Matt Stoeklen and catcher Zach Dygert return. Also back are starting pitchers Brenden Stines and Tyler Pritchard, both of whom were weekend starters last year, and closer Heyne. Even third starting pitcher Brad Piatt, who replaces Ryan DeGeeter, made seven starts last season.
With so many returning, Beals said, the team has leadership that will help get more wins.
"We have great leadership this year and we got a lot of guys with experience," he said. "Last year we didn't have that experience. We were playing four sometimes five freshman with the two junior college transfers Stoeklen and Bond ... We had a lot of inexperience last year and that caused us to not play very consistently."
One of the areas the Cardinals struggled with consistency last year was in the batter's box. The Cardinals showed the ability to pile up runs with seven games with 10 plus runs, including a 21 run game, but overall averaged 5.23 runs.
With the added experience Bond said the Cardinal offense will be much improved.
"We're going to be a lot more consistent offensively," he said. "Those guys have a year under their belt and have a pretty good idea of how pitchers are going to pitch them ... We're going to execute a lot more in the hit-and-run and bunt situations. We know what the coaches expect of us better."
Offensively the Cardinals might have struggled with consistently last year but defensive errors were the mistakes that plagued the team and cost them games. Ball State committed 111 errors last year, more than two a game, compared to opponents 72. Bond said assistant coach Alex Marconi has introduced drills to correct the problem.
"Last year we made a lot of errors, in the outfield especially, and for this year [in practice] we've had a lot of pressure put on us like game situations," Bond said. "We've done little outfield drills with ground balls that have helped our hands."
Also helping improve the fielding will be the experience gained from last year, and a couple of good defensive newcomers.
"First of all that was Hazelbaker's first season ever playing second base so he's back at second with now a year under his belt," Beals said. "We got a junior college transfer [Dean Anna] who's going to play shortstop and we got a freshmen in T.J. Baumet who's going to play third base. With Dean at shortstop and T.J. at third we are very talented at the left side of our infield."
In the outfield, while an extra year of experience will help improve the fielding, Beals has made a position switch that he said he thinks will also help.
"We have flipped Benbow and Chenoweth in the outfield," Beals said. "Chenoweth is going to play right field for the most part and Benbow is going to play left field for the most part, because I wanted to put their gloves in the gap. It's going to put them in a little bit better position to make some plays out there."
Beals said as much as he doesn't like to admit it last year was a rebuilding year after the MAC Tournament Championship in 2006. He said all last year has done is make the Cardinals better prepared for this season.
"As a program I think we learned a lot last year," Beals said. "Even though it was a struggle, it wasn't fun, don't want to do it again but we learned a lot in that process and we are going to be better for it."
Bond said there's only one thing the team can do.
"There's no other answer to it; we just got to get it done," Bond said.
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