With the opening game of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) U-12 Baseball World Cup rapidly approaching, the USA Baseball 12U National Team spent the last week working hard on its preparations for repeating last year's gold-medal winning performance.
The 18 players chosen to be on the roster late last month all congregated in West Hills, California, on Friday, kicking off a four-day stretch of training that marked the first time the group took the field together as an official team. Over the course of the weekend, they participated in a number of different activities between the lines under the hot summer sun, including individual positional work, team-oriented drills, intrasquad scrimmages, and an exhibition game on Sunday against Braves Baseball Academy, a local travel organization with a few players that have previously suited up for Team USA.
This stretch was intended to be demanding for the young players as they ready themselves for the biggest challenge of their baseball careers to date, and in the eyes of manager Troy Gerlach, they passed with flying colors.
“These guys, they’ve really surprised us," Gerlach said. "They’ve done a really good job. We’ve thrown a lot at them these last few days, and they keep asking for more. We’ve been out here for long days these last few days. It’s exciting to see how these guys are going to react in a game situation, but we have all the confidence in the world that they’re going to be just fine.”
Throughout the entire training session, Gerlach and the rest of his coaching staff consistently preached a few key themes for the team to absorb before heading off to Taiwan, with the most overarching message being getting past the fear of failure that will certainly come with playing in such a high-pressure situation. The point of this, in the manager's eyes, is to make sure his guys stay loose and perform to the abilities they have shown throughout the whole process to date.
"We’re just trying to get them to understand that it’s okay to make mistakes," Gerlach said. "We’re not going to be perfect, we’re not going to play perfect. It’s going to be a hostile environment over there, especially when we play Chinese Taipei and there are 10,000 people there. We just want to get them to understand that it’s okay to make a mistake and still play hard, compete, and play for each other.”
The other main point of emphasis was keeping the energy level high at all times, something that the staff led the charge in doing all weekend long. From the point of view of the coaches, doing this when the games start to count will help maintain the players' belief in each other, especially when the going starts to get tough later in the tournament.
“Energy is contagious," Gerlach said. "Whether you’re playing well or not playing well, if somebody has energy, it’s infectious to the rest of the team. We have to have that, because it’s going to be us versus the world.
"There’s going to be 18 people in the dugout, four coaches, and the parents in the stands rooting for us, and the rest of them are going to be against us and wanting us to fail. We have to be there for each other, and that’s where that energy helps us get through those tough moments.”
With all of this preparation now in the rearview mirror, the team will now make the long trek to Taiwan on Wednesday afternoon. It will play its first game of the World Cup on Friday, July 28, at 2:30 A.M. ET against Czech Republic.
