February 20, 2001
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Have you ever read about those psychology experiments where theyput food in front of mice, shock them every time they try to get to it,and then see if the mice will keep trying to eat the food even thoughthey get shocked every time they try to? Now, it's been a few yearssince I took Psych 1 so I'm sure I'm going to mess up a few of thedetails, but if I remember correctly, most of the mice were able tolearn not to take the food very quickly but the mice who had a certainpart of their brain removed weren't able to. They'd see the food, tryto eat it and get shocked every time. It's like they were incapable ofremembering that they got shocked the last time they went for the food.
This is exactly what I am like in getting ready for a road trip.I can't even count how many trips I've been on the last four years, butno matter how hard I try, the last hour before I'm supposed to be at theBaseball Parking Lot waiting for the bus is a mad dash. It makes nodifference if I pack my clothes the night before, set out the books Iintend to read while we're gone, and plan to get to the locker room inplenty of time to pack up my uniforms and equipment, there's always athousand other unforeseen little things that need to get done before Iget on the bus heading to the airport. Somehow I've always made itthere but usually not without having to sprint, err, waddle over fromthe Arrillaga Center over to the Baseball Parking lot in my nice clotheswith all my heavy bags five minutes before the bus is supposed to leave.
It's just not that easy to get ready to leave campus for threeor four days. Because really, when you're on the road, you're on theroad. Your Stanford life is put on hold and your entire focus shifts tothe task at hand - the games. But to tell you the truth, I think that'sone of the advantages of playing road games. No worrying about schoolfor a few days, or your social life, or whatever else is happening oncampus. Just softball.
From the minute we left campus last Wednesday afternoon youcould see that our team was focused. Excited about our first roadtrip, but focused. It helped that our first game on Thursday was goingto be against the team that ended our season last year, Michigan.
All of the returners from last years team had put a star next tothis game when we got our schedule. Our first game against a rankedopponent and a chance to avenge our two losses to them last season.What I really like about our team this year though is that none of thatbackground stuff seems to phase us. There's a fine line between beingconfident and being complacent but I really think so far we've done agood job of staying loose and taking care of business. When we fallbehind in a game, or the score is still tied in the late innings, wedon't panic. Somebody just steps up and gets on base, or gets the keyhit, or shuts the opposing team down. It all goes back to expecting towin and finding a way to make it happen.
Against Michigan, it was Sarah Beeson who stepped up. A two-rundouble after we fell behind 1-0 in the first game, and a two-run homerto put us up 2-0 in the second game. Against New Mexico, it was Cassi(Brangham) who broke open a scoreless game with an RBI in the top of the7th inning. Against Long Beach State, Maureen (LeCocq) threw a perfectgame. Even though all the games except one were close this weekend, Idon't think we ever put too much pressure on ourselves and tightened up.We just expected to win and made things happen. Our only loss came whenwe weren't able to get some key hits against Cal State Northridge onSunday. We fell behind 2-0 and came back to put runners on in each ofthe next two innings but just couldn't get enough of them home. It wasa tough loss because we knew we had the opportunities to win the gameand just didn't get it done.
No reason to panic though. Just a little shock to the system toremind us that expecting to win doesn't make it happen all by itself.Hopefully one shock is will be enough to teach us that lesson.