Nov. 29, 2014
The final two days in the Dominican consisted of two more games against Dominican Winter league team reserves.
The first day we prepared for the game by training on a local field in Boca Chica near our resort. Houses surrounded the field that made it feel enclosed, giving it an interesting look. As we started to train the residents of the houses came out on their porches and watched us play. I remember Rhett hitting a ball onto one of the porches that made the family run back inside. Locals came out and piled up behind the backstop as they watched the foreign baseball team play.
When we were done, we were off to play Escogido at their park. The stadium was really nice and coming fresh off the field we were just on it looked like a major league field. We didn’t really know what to expect from Escogido in terms of whom they would play because guys like Manny Ramirez were on their roster. The guys we played against were all professional baseball players, that were in different farm systems some of them were even on 40-man rosters. We jumped right on them in the first and played a sound game, which we ended up winning. It was an awesome experience to play against mid to late 20-year-old pro baseball players. They were all friendly and talking with them and playing against them was really something special.
After the game, we hustled back to the hotel showered up and had our own thanksgiving dinner at a nearby restaurant. The food was amazing and although we missed thanksgiving with our family it was just as enjoyable with our baseball family.
It was another quick turn around the next day as we all got packed to go home but we had one more baseball stop before our flight. The last day we played against the Licey Tigers team and although we lost this game it was also an awesome experience to learn how professionals play and learn from them. Licey again had much older players with a few who had spent some time in the majors but we played hard and other than three runs in the first inning the rest of the game was a scoreless tie.
I would definitely say we were successful on our trip down here as all in all it was a great experience socially, athletically and educationally. We learned a lot about what a third world country lifestyle is like as well as the way Dominicans go about playing baseball and the passion they have for it.
Toffey’s Journal – Day 1
Toffey’s Journal – Day 2
Toffey’s Journal – Day 3
Toffey’s Journal – Day 4
Freshman Will Toffey will be providing daily updates of what the Commodores are experiencing in the Dominican Republic on and off the field.
