April 20, 2008

Senior Jeff Thomas will be blogging throughout the season about his experiences as a member of the Huskie baseball team. The outfielder from Loves Park, Ill., has set a career high for runs batted in during his third season as the starting leftfielder. Thomas' latest posting talks about the experience of playing before a NIU record 4,600 fans at U.S. Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox.

Nothing but pure fun playing at U.S. Cellular on Wednesday night against a good Notre Dame team. My first thoughts stepping on the field was that's a big hitters eye! The field was what you would expect a Major League field to be like, PERFECT! Even better we had a good size crowd to play in front of, which made the game a lot more exciting. It would have been a great atmosphere to play in, even if the fans were not on our side. I think having a couple thousand fans on your side makes you play better because you don't want to look bad in front of them - that's my though about it.

The fly ball that I got in the game was probably the craziest fly ball I've had in a while. I was laughing the whole time the ball was coming down while I was doing my clown act in the outfield. Another thing that I couldn't help but do was look at the Jumbotron every minute. It's not everyday that you are on one of those things like the pros are daily. I especially noticed when I was in the batters box because in between pitches it's like you just had to look at yourself up there at least once.

Before the start of the game I was interviewed a couple times. One big station that interviewed me was Fox and, man, was I nervous. I had no idea what to say or even whether to look at the lady asking me questions or the guy holding the camera. The funny thing was that it reminded me of being in a Communications class a couple of years ago. I think I handled the interview well for the most part. In all it was a good night to play some ball for the university and our efforts to keep moving forward after Feb. 14. The night at U.S. Cellular field was definitely a night to remember for my teammates, family, NIU, and myself.

Until next time ...

JT