This is a great time of year for basketball, hockey, or the snow-removal business. If you’re one who needs a little baseball to chew on a few weeks before pitchers and catchers report to spring training, we’re here for it.
The sweet sounds of baseballs slapping into mitts and bats pinging away are starting to be heard in Connecticut, where college baseball practice began this week. At UConn, Elliot Ballpark allows for outdoor practice — on some days.
“You have to kind of govern yourself,” Coach Jim Penders said. “You can be so excited about, ‘Hey, we can get outside because we have (artificial) turf,’ but you can’t forget that sometimes it’s not smart to be doing that.”
If the real-feel temperatures are below 30, the Huskies stay inside and hit and throw. If it’s up above freezing, without the biting winds, they’ll get outside and work on a few things. Last season ended bitterly; UConn had a tournament-worthy resume, but was left out by the NCAA selectors for the first time since 2017. Penders, winningest coach in program history, used the unwelcomed extra time to tweak a few things, little baseball kinds of things, the stuff we love to chop up in mid-January.
Dom Amore’s Sunday Read: CT high school star now scoring big for Yale; DC’s threes in NBA, and more
“We’ve got to believe our name wasn’t called for a reason,” Penders said, “so instead of wallowing, let’s change a couple of things. Watching the Yankees every night, seeing those guys use the ‘vault lead’ to steal bases, and having Northeastern come in and do that to us the last two or three seasons … we adopted a few different techniques on the bases to make us more athletic.”
The vault lead, used by Jose Caballero, the AL base-stealing champ, is a shorter lead off the base, but with rhythmic shuffle to build momentum and time the pitcher’s leg kick, similar to what used to be called a “walking lead.” After watching some of the baserunning that made a difference in the World Series, UConn coaches are drilling players not to slide on a force play if they can beat the throw standing up.
“We also changed our arm conditioning program,” Penders said, “did some research with major-league organizations. Some guys in pro ball who wore our uniform gave us a lot of good information on how they handle arm care.”
Penders, an old catcher, has never warmed up to having catchers drop down to one knee, but his research indicated that it’s done to keep catchers from wearing down late in games and losing the ability to frame pitches. So he’s relented and will allow catchers to go down on one knee when there is nobody on base and less than two strikes. “Never thought I’d do that,” he said. “But I made the adjustment after doing some research with guys I trust that coach that position.”
After talking with Nick Ahmed, ex Husky who became a Gold Glove MLB shortstop, Penders is coaching infielders to be up in the air as the ball is pitched. “Nick said, ‘If you’re on the ground when the ball is struck, you’re stopped,’” Penders said. By landing with momentum, an infielder gets a better jump.
Starting to feel warmer yet?
Penders and his coaches also worked the transfer portal, and have 22 new players among 39 on the roster. They’ve focused on “pitch-ability” over raw velocity in putting together a pitching staff after a season when control issues plagued them.
Meantime, UConn, No. 1 in the conference’s preseason coaches poll, did a remarkable job of retaining core players. Slugger Tyler Minick, who led the Big East with 22 homers and was second with 74 RBI, is back and will play center field, possibly right. Minick, pitcher Sean Finn and shortstop Rob Rispoli were first-team all-conference.
Maddix Dalena, 2025 Big East preseason Player of the Year, who missed most of last season with a wrist injury, is back and could shift from first to third base to make room for Jackson Marshall, 6 feet 8 and 260 pounds, at first. Marshall, a transfer from Southern New Hampshire, has “light tower power,” Penders said.
UConn coach Jim Penders made a few off-season adjustments. (UConn Athletics)
UConn also has the last two state Gatorade Players of the Year. Connor Lane (2024) from Old Saybrook, who is healthy after a late-season illness and competing for the starting job at catcher with Newington’s Gabriel Tirado, and freshman Cam Righi, 2025 player of the year from Wethersfield, also a catcher, but with ability to play elsewhere. Another state player, Evan Menzel from Coventry, transferred from Maine, where he hit .342 as a freshman, and could find a spot on the infield.
As roles sort themselves out, the Huskies have four weeks to perfect their tweaks before opening the season Feb. 13 against Nebraska at the MLB Desert Classic in Scottsdale, Ariz. They’ll spend the first 10 days of the season in Arizona; the first scheduled home game is March 3 vs. New Haven.
More for your Sunday Read:
Stacy Revere/Getty Images
Jon Gruden got a large gift box from UConn and flashed his knowledge of school history, with some blanks to be filled in.
Honorable mentions, notable omissions
Jon Gruden received a box of UConn apparel and gear at his Fired Football Coaches Association headquarters this week, which he opened in a video posted on social media, extolling the virtues of every UConn figure that came to mind.
Gruden shouted out a long list of UConn figures as he unpacked, in order of appearance: Jason Candle, who apparently sent the box. “Of all the people we’ve had come in here to the FFCA, who is as good at the X’s and O’s?” Gruden asks. “Nobody. Jason Candle, he’s a hell of a coach, man.”
Jonathan The Husky, Geno Auriemma, Dan Hurley, Ray Allen, Kemba Walker, Byron Jones, Donald Brown, Bob Diaco, Jim Mora, Paul Pasqualoni, Skip Holtz, Rick Forzano, Tom Jackson, Rentschler Field, Darius Butler, Robert McClean, Tyvon Branch, Obi Melafanwu, Travis Jones, Kendall Reyes, Shamar Stephen, Dan Orlovsky, Shane Stafford, Will Beatty, Ryan Van Demark, Matt Peart, Jordan Todman, John Dorsey, actors Meg Ryan and Tony Todd (that big, gravelly voiced guy in Candyman), Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), “that big politician guy,” Kirk Ferentz, Rebecca Lobo, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Paige Bueckers and Maya Moore.
Gruden noted that Auriemma was a great coach, “but if you had (those players) you’d be a good coach, too. He must really be a great recruiter. That’s what we need to do, Jason Candle, get some superstars, man.”
Interesting choices, there. Some of the surprising omissions in Gruden’s 5:16 stream of consciousness were: Randy Edsall, Jim Calhoun, Kevin Ollie, Mark Daigneault, Caron Butler, Stephon Castle, Donovan Clingan, Tage Thompson, George Springer, Sarah Strong, Azzi Fudd, Rip Hamilton, Alex Karaban, Molly Qerim and Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley’s character on Cheers).
Dom Amore: Patriots entrust QB Drake Maye with this CT native, and results speak for themselves
Sunday short takes
*Manchester’s Ashton Grant, with the Patriots, is not the only Connecticut guy working with a high-profile quarterback on a championship-level team. Chandler Whitmer, UConn’s QB in 2012-13, is the quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator at Indiana, working with Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza. The Hoosiers play Miami for the national championship Monday.
*Six years ago Sunday, Jan. 18, 2020, Dan Hurley delivered his famous line after a loss at Villanova: “Get us now, because it’s coming.” The UConn men are 157-35, a winning percentage of .818, since that day.
*UConn’s Tyler Muszelik is on the Mike Richter Award’s midseason watch list for top goalie in the nation.
*If you’ve been paying attention, “In The Zone” is yesterday’s phrase, so over. Modern coaches and athletes have a new one. But somehow, I can’t see WFSB-TV’s Joe Zone going with “Joe Flow-State.”
Dom Amore’s Sunday Read: CT high school star now scoring big for Yale; DC’s threes in NBA, and more
*The Connecticut Soccer Coaches Association is giving its Bo Kolinsky sports media award to Chris Saunders of WATR-AM 1320 in Waterbury for his coverage of high school sports, particularly soccer. The award, named for the legendary Courant high school sports editor, will be presented Sunday in Southington.
*Quinnipiac men’s basketball coach Tom Pecora and Manhattan’s John Gallagher, formerly of UHart, were both ejected after an argument following a hard foul late in their game in New York on Jan. 2. They meet again in Hamden on Monday.
*Waterbury’s Patrick Graham, a rock solid, veteran college and NFL defensive coordinator, is getting long overdue attention in the current cycle of head coaching changes, interviewing with the Dolphins this week.
*Trinity men’s hockey will add a new member to the team Monday through the Team Impact Program, which matches college teams with children who have life-threatening illnesses. The newest Bantam is Jensen Petersen, from Bristol’s Greene-Hills School.
*The best news of the week for college sports was the NCAA’s announcement that, effective immediately, the transfer portal will not open until after the championship events in several sports, notably basketball and hockey. This is an overdue lightning bolt of common sense, and they should do the same with football, for coaches and players.
*The worst news of the week concerned the 26 federal indictments, including several college basketball players, in an alleged scheme to influence games in exchange for money from gambling interests. This is now an epidemic affecting all sports. When you make gambling so easy, as close as the phone in your hand, make it acceptable by going into business with gambling sites that offer all sorts of easy-to-rig “prop bets,” it is inevitable that college kids, especially those not in line for big NIL or revenue shares, will be susceptible. The genie is out of the bottle, and out of control.
Last word
*Auriemma may have 12 championships and serve to-die-for chicken parm at his establishment, but getting one postgame pizza he didn’t like from up near Storrs doesn’t give him the right to smear all Connecticut ah-beetz with the same sauce, as he did Thursday night. As a lifelong New Havener, I took offense. As my grandma would’ve growled: “Tu sei patz!”