The PUP Chronicles with Peter “Romo” Romanello

Since receiving the news of my season ending injury, I decided to add a little different vantage point to “A Bloop & A Blast” with my very own “PUP (Physically Unable to Perform) Chronicles.” Enjoy!

It could be one of the hardest things in the world to overcome when you hear that you can no longer play the sport you love for a full season.  Ever since last Tuesday, March 29^th, I tore my UCL ligament in my left thumb sidelining me for 8 weeks.  I knew I would be in for one of the toughest times of my life when I sat in the dugout and realized that I couldn’t be on the field with my teammates. But I soon realized that I wasn’t going through this alone…

Matt "Simsky" Zemke, Joe "Joey T" Turek, and the PUP, Peter "Romo" Romanello

As cliché as this sounds, I never knew I would ever consider a baseball team a family, until now.  I always thought it only happened in sport movies or stories like that, but it finally presented itself to me.  My teammates are my best friends and I will never forget the support they have given me to help me pull through this difficult time. I know it might be tedious when they need to open a bottle, rip open a bag of chips, or carry a plate for me at the dining hall, but those little things made it clear that they were true teammates, friends, and family.   I will continue to help them succeed on the field by doing anything I can; whether it’s throwing batting practice, helping out with defensive plays, or just cheering them on.

When the schedule hits conference games, it means one thing: business.  The CCIW is one of the best D3 conferences in the country and we have a goal of defending our conference title this year.  We led off conference play this past weekend against North Park.  I would have to say North Park is the one school that really gets our blood boiling the most. They are pros at cheering and hooting from their dugout.  It is unanimous around our team that there is no love lost between us and NPU and that they are our biggest rivals.  So I cannot explain in words how good it felt shaking hands and looking them in the eyes knowing we won the series. 

The bus ride home was great, and always is better when you win a series, and it’s exciting to see people really get along on the team.  I can already tell that our team this year has a very tight bond and it will definitely help when we get deeper into our conference schedule and people begin to stress.  I believe we have grown a lot as a team within these past few weeks and I think we are ready to face Millikin and show that we mean business.

Off the field, we like to get together as a team as much as we can.  Now since we are college students and don’t have the funds that we would like, we take joy in the little things in life. For example, the team loves when K-Man (short for Kaufman dining hall) serves Coach Bogan’s favorite food, “Beef Boganoff.”  When K-Man is having an “off day” and offering to many healthy options---carrot slices, green beans, and rice pilaf---we hit up the Cage for the good burgers and quesadillas.  After the meals, we usually get a good session of video games in. 

 

**On a side note, Andrew Wulbecker (who is one of my roommates and is now a student coach) has been challenging me in NCAA Baseball ’06 on PS2 and I actually beat him 2 games out of 3, and this is with one good thumb and the other thumb in a cast.  So just a little jab there at him trying to take advantage of my injury.*** 

But anyways, it should be a fun week of games and practices, and hopefully it warms up so we can see you all out there! Here We Go!

Romo