Coupeville Sports

Joey Lippo (right) during the fall ball season in Oak Harbor. (Teresa Besaw photo)

Coupeville Middle School eighth-grader Joey Lippo is at national baseball spring training this weekend, the only player in his age group from Washington state.

The following is dad Joe Lippo’s first hand account of the adventure:

Mesa, Arizona. 0700.

That’s 7 AM to you civilian types.

24 kids aged 12-14, including Coupeville’s own Joey Lippo, dragged themselves out of bed, showered, ate, and then climbed on the bus to engage in national level spring training.

They arrived at the athletic compound, in the middle of an active orange grove, and were immediately in awe.

This was, after all, a professional field. The Los Angeles Angels do spring training here.

Dead center field boasts a sign that reads “420”, a distance that kids dream about hitting. There’s little comfort looking left or right, as those signs indicate an only slightly more reachable 369.

To make matters a little more intimidating, they were greeted by professional coaches and players as they got to the dugout.

The hitting coach for the Colorado Rockies. The catchers coach from the New York Yankees. An outfielder from the Detroit Tigers. The list would go on.

But it was time, and these coaches wait for no one.

At 9 AM (sharp!) basic warmups commenced. Catching, throwing, base-running, fielding, batting, stretching, agility and distance laps.

For three hours.

Then after a Jimmy Johns delivered lunch, the drills began again, with no let up. Kids were starting to wonder just what they had gotten themselves into.

Then, at 3:30, they were called in from various stations, and the inter-squad scrimmage began.

Navy vs Black, and the pitcher was none other than former Detroit Tiger Ernie Young, an eight-year MLB veteran. This was a “coach pitch” scrimmage, so he pitched from behind the net to every player.

Joey cracked Young’s first offering to him past the second baseman on his first at bat, then on a subsequent play, beat a throw to home for the score.

In his second and third at bats, two solid hits were flagged down by speedy infielders, preventing him from reaching base again.

All in all, this is not what these kids are used to. They are used to hitting a ball to the shortstop and beating the double play throw to first, or hitting to shallow right and getting a base hit.

Not here.

A double play ball is going to be a double play about 95% of the time. There are very, very few dropped fly balls.

It’s 10 hours a day of constant physical and mental challenges. We shall see if Joey survives the weekend…

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