From super heroes, to a human vacuum cleaner, to a knight who can trace his lineage back beyond Charlemagne, it seems the lineup for the West Windsor-Plainsboro Babe Ruth 15s team certainly has its strengths.##M:[more]##
Sure, the team doesn’t really have a Batman or Spiderman, but Sean O’Connell (a.k.a. the Human Vacuum Cleaner) is “catching balls wherever they are hit,” according to the quirky “celebrity profiles” drawn up about the players on West Windsor’s Babe Ruth 15s by coach Joe Jensen this year.
With a quick look at the profiles, which highlight each player’s qualities, intertwined with comical fairy tales behind each teammate’s personality traits and upbringings, it’s easy to see that Jensen goes to great lengths to motivate his players to have fun.
For Jensen, this year’s post season has been one of rebuilding and structuring, he says, and all the hard work has resulted in vast improvement in many of the team’s players. Even though the team has ended its tournament play with a loss to Hopewell Valley on July 5, followed by a loss to Princeton, 9-3, on July 8, the team is young, consisting mostly of players who should be playing on the 14 level. Since there were not enough players, the 14 and 15-year-olds combined for this year’s 15s team.
Jensen says he knows great things are on the horizon for the team, which will return many players in next year’s tournament. He points to players like Corey Baumann and Joe Cirafici. Jensen did not envision Baumann as a key player in the beginning of the season, but “he came out and earned a starting spot.” Cirafici, who usually plays catcher, earned a spot at second base. Chris Skolka and Sean O’Connell have also improved greatly, Jensen says.
“If you come back next year you’re going to have an awesome team,” he said. “Next year we’ll be pretty much unstoppable. They can walk through the districts.”
For Jensen, tactics like the celebrity profiles he drew up are all part of his main goal of enhancing communication, which is how players on a team will loosen up and work together. “I had them pick their own captains,” he said. “It’s about taking ownership. You start having the kids say, ‘Who is going to lead us?’ — not that the coach picks somebody. You want to do little things to get people in that kind of mode. You want to get the parents excited. You want to get the kids excited.”
Last year’s team consisted entirely of 15-year-olds, who went on to win the district, and the hope is that the feat can be repeated.
Jensen subscribes to the philosophy that in baseball, you get better by playing better competition, and the tournament certainly has a lot of it. But “each one of these kids will benefit greatly from this experience,” he said. “Pretty much all of them can come back at the same level next year.”
Jensen’s son, also Joe, who would have been the team’s star pitcher, was sidelined by a pinched nerve this season, although he did occasionally fill in as a substitute in other areas when needed. His father says he believes it is better for him to rest and get healthy, rather than, in the worst case scenario, doing further damage and leaving him unable to pitch again. Jensen feels that having him out there would have dramatically increased the team’s chances of beating teams like Nottingham, but he knows that the team’s hard work this year will leave them with fond memories and will pay off next season.
“You want to come out with thinking about how you accomplished things together,” he said. “The approach has been successful. To see the kids talking about it, you know it resonated with them. It hit them. You know it was well-received.”
