Arctic blast hasn’t put A&M in a deep freeze
Baseball and basketball teams press on despite crippling storm
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M infielder Bryce Blaum appreciates being able to simply swing a bat in the past week, even if it’s in a chilly indoor batting cage. He also knows the false bravado a cage can create for a would-be slugger.
“The ball flight,” Blaum explained of the biggest difference between hitting on a baseball field and in a cage, and what can lead to an ill-fated “cage bomb” in the latter.
“You think you catch one,” Blaum said with a grin, “but in reality it’s going 300 feet and the left fielder is catching it.”
At this stretch in the downswing of a historic arctic blast, however, Blaum and his fellow Aggies simply hope to compete in some form or fashion starting later this week.
Two weeks ago, A&M baseball coach Rob Childress would have bet a bucket of baseballs that any discussion about the “challenge” of starting the season in the days leading to Friday’s scheduled opener would have centered on the COVID-19 pandemic that prompted the canceling of last season.
But the persistent pandemic has been put on the back burner (so to speak) for a few days while A&M baseball and other programs either try to crank up their seasons or keep their seasons rolling during the winter storm blanketing the state in ice and snow and single-digit (or lower) temperatures.
Meantime, A&M men’s basketball has not played this month — a stretch of four postponed games — because of COVID-19 issues within the program. The Aggies (8-7, 2-6 SEC) were finally set to play again Wednesday night against No. 8 Alabama in Reed Arena when the weather pushed that one back to 2 p.m. Thursday.
A&M women’s basketball, ranked fifth nationally and angling to add to its national title from a decade ago, felt lucky to squeeze in its 80-70 victory over No. 21 Tennessee on Sunday.
Afterward, Aggies coach Gary Blair thanked Tennessee for making the effort — the Lady Volunteers easily could have said no thanks with Brazos County enveloped in ice — because A&M (19-1, 10-1) is doing everything it can to keep its momentum rolling with seven consecutive wins.
Blair loves a good crowd at Reed, but in the hours before the Tennessee game he and A&M administrators urged fans to stay home. The university did, however, open Reed on Tuesday afternoon as a “warming center” for area residents seeking to escape the subfreezing
temperatures and widespread power outages in the Bryan-College Station community.
The basketball venue is expected to stay a warming center until noon Thursday — two hours before the Aggies and Crimson Tide are scheduled to tip off. The women are scheduled to host Missouri at 7 p.m. Thursday.
For its part, the Aggies football team set aside its offseason workouts Monday and Tuesday because of the weather and the university shutting down overall.
Fourteen years ago, A&M opened the McFerrin Athletic Center, home to an entire artificial turf football field, and the football team has benefited greatly from the indoor complex during training camp and adverse weather during the season. So has the baseball team.
With temperatures in the teens and 20s on Tuesday, the baseball team practiced at the MAC and plans to do likewise Wednesday. The baseball team also has a spacious indoor complex along the left side of Blue Bell Park — where the Aggies have cranked plenty of “cage bombs” in the past week.
“First time since I’ve been here we’ve had to do something like that,” Blaum said of not being on Blue Bell’s plush field in the days leading to the opener. “But coach Childress has done a great job of making sure we’re getting our work in, any way possible. We’ve seen live arms and had at-bats in game situations in the cages. We have a HitTrax machine that (reads) your exit velocity, and whether it’s a hit or
not.
“With the technology and the facilities we have, we’re really blessed to be able to stay prepared.”
A&M is scheduled to open Friday night against Xavier of Cincinnati, Ohio. The frigid weather has made the Aggies more appreciative, too, of what their peers from the upper reaches of the United States face in preparing for a season that starts in February.
“It’s a lot different for those teams up north, where they’re having to deal with this kind of stuff way more often than we are,” A&M infielder Will Frizzell said. “This is my fourth year here, and I’ve never faced anything like what we’ve had this past week.”
Childress told his players to hunker down Monday and let them choose their best time to get some work in at Blue Bell Park on Tuesday.
“Certainly it’s been a challenge here the past week,” he said. “But I’m thankful for the facilities we have. … We’ve been able to ramp up the pitchers from a pitch-count standpoint and continue to get live at-bats for our hitters. We were able to do that inside.
“The thing that we’ve (not) been able to do was get outside and play the game from a defensive standpoint, and reading balls live … but we had two weeks of great weather leading up to this. Hopefully later in the week, we’ll be back outside on the field.”