Hey, this is Ross from Evanston, I will be writing a blog for the season and updating every couple of days, sort of like a diary. I'm a catcher on the Varsity baseball team at Evanston Township High School, I am a junior and can’t wait for the season to begin.

It's been a pretty rough couple of months for me so far, earlier I was told I have a partial tear in my ulnar collateral ligament ( the infamous “Tommy John” ligament); it's mostly known to happen in pitchers more often than catchers. However, I have been going to Athletico, which is a fantastic sports rehab place. I worked on strengthening my rotator cuff and my forearm muscles to take some pressure off my elbow. They did a great job of getting them both a lot stronger, and I feel fantastic.

For about three months now the team has been meeting Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6:15 A.M., which probably has been the toughest part so far. We would arrive in the fieldhouse of our school around 6 and just talk and stretch, all while trying to wake up. Once you started running though it woke you up pretty good. We would then go and lift after running because we really couldn't do anything baseball-related because it was to early. We would lift for about an hour and then run.

This wasn't normal running, like jogging or anything. This was RUNNING. We did full gym suicides or full gym boards ( a two-by-four wrapped in a towel and you push with your hands down and back),The suicides had to be all under 17 seconds or it didn't count, so we ended up doing eight instead of the original six. Boards were not timed but they were harder. But all of this helped, we are now faster and have greater endurance. Our pitchers are throwing faster and our basestealers are running faster.

So it appears there is a method to our coaches’ madness. I haven't been able to throw until recently and even now I can't throw 100 percent I'm at about 75 percent right now.It's been hard not being able to throw full-speed like my teammates. But I haven't had any pain so far, so things are looking up.

We had tryouts recently, which were not as hard as they were hyped up to be. I couldn't do some of the tests because of my arm, but I made the team because I'm one of two catchers. We are now having two-a-day practices because we have our first game in about two weeks. We have been going outside on different fields, though (most of the time it’s whatever field doesn't have snow on it). Hopefully our field melts soon.

Well, that’s it for me, I'll talk to you in a few days.