Numbers not a problem this year
By Greg Seubert
As a player and coach, Rocky Mondello has been around the game of baseball for most of his life.
He was back on the field April 19 for the first time in almost two years for the first day of practice with more than 40 Waupaca High School players.
“I’m excited,” Mondello said while watching his varsity team work out on the Comets’ home field. “It’s one of those days in my year when it’s hard to sleep the night before. We’ve gone over 600 days without a game.”
The Comets will have just over a week to prepare for the season opener, a North Eastern Conference matchup Tuesday, April 27, at Wrightstown against the defending conference champions.
It’s the first of more than 20 games the Comets have scheduled over six weeks.
“Because of covid, we had 15 contact days this year,” Mondello said. “We were able to run different open gyms where I could coach a little more. We started the second week in February and we did two days every week. Once other sports were finished and boys started showing up, we were averaging 35 kids at each open gym.
“You could tell that the boys were excited and wanted to play after missing a year,” he said. “A lot of them played in the summer, but that’s different than high school baseball.”
Mondello and other baseball coaches have plenty of questions to answer about the upcoming season.
For example, the Comets have only one player on their roster – Devin Geary – with varsity experience. He moved up to the varsity squad for a few games in 2019 while other players were on a choir trip.
“I was at Adam Fox’s house, the coach from Freedom, yesterday and he said, ‘I don’t know,’” Mondello said. “We know that everybody’s in the same boat. We just want to make sure that they’re ready to go. With 22 juniors and seniors alone, there’s a lot of competition at each position. There are lot of kids that can play the game of baseball. We’ll have to move some guys around and when guys get their opportunity, hopefully, they’ll do what they’re capable of doing and they’re ready. That’s kind of how it’s going to work.”
Mondello has been working on possible lineups for about a month, but added that it’s up to the players and how they respond when their number is called.
“There are injuries, there are trips, there are situations that come up where somebody might all of a sudden be a starter and they have to be ready,” he said. “One luxury we do have is that we have three teams. We’re blessed with numbers and quality baseball players.
“There are a lot of programs that don’t,” he said. ”I know there have been some injuries that have happened in the off-season and some guys on other teams are not going to be around. That’s going to make a big difference. Everybody has a new deck of cards. You don’t know what can happen.”
Wrightstown won the North Eastern championship in 2019 with a 15-3 record, followed by Freedom (12-5), Waupaca and Denmark (12-6), Little Chute (11-7), Fox Valley Lutheran (8-9), Marinette (7-11), Luxemburg-Casco (4-11), Oconto Falls (3-12) and Clintonville (1-15).
Waupaca will open the season with seven straight conference games.
“The season is done in six weeks and it will go by very fast,” Mondello said. “We’re looking for guys that can hit live pitching rather than just machine pitching. We’re going to look for guys that are good teammates, but they also need to be able to play the game of baseball. They have to know how to run the bases and hit. Hitting at the varsity level is very different, especially after taking a year off. We’re looking for anybody that’s willing to put in that work and perform. We want to make sure we can compete at that level.”
A canceled 2020 season hit last year’s team hard, according to Mondello.
“It was tough for last year’s group,” he said. “We tried staying in contact with guys and making sure that if they had an opportunity to go outside and throw a little, that they would do that in case they all of a sudden said, ‘OK, we’re good to go.’ That just never ended up happening. It was tough for the seniors because there was no closure there.”
On the other hand, there are signs that the game of baseball is slowly returning to normal, including fans being allowed to attend games.
“There are unlimited fans,” Mondello said. “They just have to socially distance. You want fans here and I’m excited that we’re going to be able to have fans in the stands. The nice thing is we’ll be able to spread them wherever they want to go. We might have people sitting in the outfield. When the boys are in the dugout, they have to have their mask on. They can have their mask off when they’re out playing, but other than that, it’s kind of normal.”
Mondello was an assistant coach on the Waupaca team that won a WIAA Division 2 state championship in 2016. Whether the Comets return to state remains to be seen, but Mondello is happy that his team has an opportunity.
“It’ll be exciting,” he said. “The neat thing is you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Waupaca Baseball Team 2021 Schedule
• Tuesday, April 27 – at Wrightstown, 4:30 p.m.
• Friday, April 30 – vs. Wrightstown, 4:30 p.m.
• Monday, May 3 – at Clintonville, 4:30 p.m.
• Thursday, May 6 – vs. Clintonville, 4:30 p.m.
• Saturday, May 8 – at Denmark, 11 a.m. (DH)
• Tuesday, May 11 – at Little Chute, 4:30 p.m.
• Thursday, May 13 – vs. New London, 4:30 p.m.
• Friday, May 14 – vs. Little Chute, 4:30 p.m.
• Monday, May 17 – vs. Wausau East, 4:30 p.m.
• Tuesday, May 18 – at Luxemburg-Casco, 4:30 p.m.
• Friday, May 21 – vs. Luxemburg-Casco, 4:30 p.m.
• Saturday, May 22 – vs. Fox Valley Lutheran, 11 a.m. (DH)
• Tuesday, May 25 – vs. Freedom, 4:30 p.m.
• Thursday, May 27 – at Freedom, 4:30 p.m.
• Friday, May 28 – at Markesan, 5 p.m.
• Tuesday, June 1 – vs. Oconto Falls, 3:30 p.m. (DH)
• Thursday, June 3 – vs. Marinette, 3:30 p.m. (DH)
• Friday, June 4 – vs. Mosinee at Athletic Park, Wausau, 7 p.m.