Do you know about the Floirda Marlins? Yes, they taste very good!

If you apparently haven't been watching the MLB, shame on you. The LA Angels and the LA Dodgers slapped their division opponents out and are heading to the playoffs.

There were a few big highlights during the season like the significance of Manny Ramirez and CC Sabathia with their respective teams, but there is one team that I would like to point out.

No, the team isn't in the playoff.
No, the team wouldn't be the Mets nor the Yankees.
Its the Flordia Marlins.

WHO!?

Yeah, beats me. The team is full of "Who's he?" players. They don't have any high-profile players. Except one of them is married to one, Misty May. Hardly any goes to their home games. It looks like 5,000 of the 45,000 seats are filled most of the time. And the days of them as MLB Champions seem to be thousands of years ago. Yeah, not too long ago they really they did win one, actually two!

But what is so special about them, even how HORRIBLE their fan base was, how UNTALENTED they seemed, and how LITTLE people knew about them... they almost made it into the playoffs. For majority of the season, they really had a chance and were a legitimate darkhorse in winning their division. Even though they didn't achieve the success most people consider, the championship, I'd say they were pretty successful and darn good. They made nothing into something.

It just comes to show that you don't need those amazing qualities that help you win the gold. Look at the Detroit Tigers. They had amazing amount of talent, a bunch of high-profiled name, a winning-determined management, and a strong fan base. And all of that led to them LAST PLACE of their division. You don't need the stuff to make an impact to your team. Just have a ton of fun, play hard, and be inspired. That's what the Marlins did.

Practice and Away game

Soccer practice started yesterday. Unfortunately, that means even fewer people will be coming out for volleyball conditioning. Only three people were there yesterday and its hard to have a real practice with so few people.

We did have a chance to practice with the girls for about half an hour, though. The guys did some limited blocking and also some hitting. We have to be careful because the net is much shorter than we are used to. Its not helpful to take full swings on a girls net because the girls are likely to see. It is their practice after all and they should be the priority.

I had the day off today from conditioning because the girls have an away game. I would always rather practice, but having a day to rest is nice. My legs have been stuff from all the jumping drills.

I am impatiently awaiting the next couple girl's games. I really do love to watch volleyball.

-Seth

Back to business

The girls volleyball team has been a little rocky in their past couple games. I talked to Victoria Hoang earlier and she says they really need to win. I completely agree, they need to get a win or the losses will pile up and the team will get discouraged.

I am rather empathetic after the boy's volleyball team did horrible last season. We had some of the same problems too. The girls have talent but are not playing together very well. They have little spurts where they play really well and talk a lot but then they have the opposite too. Its a hard problem to deal with. No one ever tries to lose but they may at times start to accept that nothing better may come.

Once they put it together, I know they will be good. I'll keep going to the games to support them and everyone else should try and make an effort too as well. We'll see what happens, I'll get the news about their game vs. Buena Park later.

-Seth

Dear disgruntled reader

I have a much needed day off today from volleyball practice. My legs are pretty much dead and probably everyone else is similarly tired.

Apparently a former graduate from OA is dissatisfied with my work and thinks all my volleyball articles are bad and I'm a terrible person and we need a new writer and all that good stuff. Everyone has a right to their opinion in a perfect world and I should be allowed one as well.

Criticism is good, actually, but only when it can have some sort of application for change. Oxford has no system of how to write sports articles except for the same old general articles the Gamut puts out. Those articles have to be general because they have can not instantly release something. GameDay articles can be put on as soon as they are done and should be more detail oriented. For better or worse, I like to write out all the details in my recaps because I want the reader to know everything. Even more so, it is the best way to write out a recap I have tried. Last year I had to experiment and this style came out on top. I have been doing extremely detailed recaps since last spring and up until this moment, the articles have been fine.

What I do not understand is being badgered at without an alternative. English class never prepared me to write sports, I have had to play things by ear. So by all means, please tell me what I can do better. What in your mind is necessary to include and what is not? Do you want objective or subjective? Would you like for me to describe to you the game in five sentences? Do you want my analysis on the game? Well, what is it? I was only told I sucked.

I follow athletes on every play and on every point. They have made the effort to come out and give it their all, I just try and give them credit for everything they do in the game.

Volleyball is my favorite sport and the only sport I have played throughout high school. So please, if I am doing a disservice to my fellow volleyball players, tell me how I may improve immediately!

Humbly,

-Seth

Keeps going and going and going...

You know what grinds my gears? The new facebook layout.
You know what else grinds my gears? Running!

Cross-country team, no offense, but I simply hate running. I'm fine running when in some kind of activity like running down the court playing basketball or sprinting pass a defensive back in football, but just simply running? Not my thing. See, I find the act of running as a physical, back-breaking exercise but after a few minutes I find it boring and a cause of my constant wheezing. I wheeze pretty easy because I wasn't evacuated during Hurricane Andrew (I was a baby in Florida), so I'm a sick little boy. :( Maybe thats why I'm not a fan of running. But still, I watched the running events in Olympics and it was pretty cool to watch the sprints, if I didn't blink my eyes. I don't want to sound harsh about running, I try to run/job/walk/crawl everyday so I don't get diabetes and high blood pressure like my entire family but, I can't seem to find any other motivation in doing so. Maybe you can change my pessimistic attitude. :)

Start of volleyball practice

Hey everyone.

I have returned to begin regularly posting on the blog. Hopefully I can keep everyone in touch with what is going on for all our sports.

Well, though it may not be boy's volleyball season, the varsity team just started conditioning and practicing today. Being the first real practice since a rather easy going summer volleyball camp, it was extremely tiring. We did jumping drills for about half an hour (my legs are dead now) and then some work against the girl's varsity squad. I was glad to be back on a volleyball court. I missed it a lot after camp was over. We scrimmaged the girls too but it was not really fair. We played on the girls net, over a half foot lower than the guys are used to, so we can get way over the net.

But its alright. The girls still pass WAY better than the guys do.

The girls have their first preseason game tomorrow against Santiago. They should not be an extremely strong team. This game will be a good chance to get used to running the offense and working out some of the kinks the team has. Also, I will be able to take a look at how they play and make some predictions for the regular season when it comes around.

Try and come out if you can. Volleyball games are very fun to watch.

-Seth