WINCHESTER, Va. – Senior Daniel Freshley is in his second year of blogging about the baseball program. This week, in his third edition of 'The Dirt', Danny previews the today's season opener.

Well, we're finally on our way. It was starting to feel like we we're never going to play, but I sit here writing to you happily aboard the Iron Horse (what the team calls the bus) cruising down I-81 on the way to Roanoke. Yet again, this week we prepared and got our hopes up for games to be played at Bridgeforth Field, but Mother Nature had other plans. Unfortunately we probably had the greatest snowfall of the season this past week, but after much hard work and labor on the beautiful field that is Bridgeforth, we were able to remove all of the snow and ice from the infield tarp and expedite the melting process on the rest of the field. If all goes as planned, we will play this coming week at home!

We began our spring break – which you can hardly call "spring" – with a great day of practice Saturday morning and afternoon at the Armory and Shentel Stadium turf. Regardless of the weather, spring break is one of the two unique times of the year that Coach Anderson tells us we get to act like professional baseball players. Over winter break we have the opportunity to work out, practice, and prepare for our upcoming season just as the professionals do. We have no commitments to school or other activities so our only job as baseball players is to get ourselves prepared for the upcoming season. Similarly, over spring break we have the opportunity to play and practice every day with no class commitments or homework to work on. It's definitely one of my favorite times of the year.

Four years ago, on my first road trip, the team quickly discovered that I had an extensive collection of movies. As a result, I was deemed movie boy and have been handling all things movie related on the bus since. Fast forward four years and here I am, still operating the DVD player when need be, and still providing a majority of the movies we watch. This road trip, our newest additions to the collection are "Furry," The Judge" and "This is the End." Unfortunately, after many road trips – especially the longer trips – we begin to run out of new options and have to find other entertainment alternatives. Many of us will play "The Name Game," in which one person proposes a name (typically a famous athlete or celebrity) and provide one word hints to their partner to help them guess the name. This game can last hours on end and provides nothing but laughs.

We look forward to the many (hopefully) games ahead and all of our dedicated fans tremendous support. For those of you on spring break, we hope you have a great break and safe travels when you return to campus. The baseball team will continue to enjoy paradise here in Winchester.

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