A Walk in the Cleats of a College Baseball Player: Regular Season Routine

By - Jaquan Murphy

As spring comes in, so does the regular season. The spring semester brings a hectic seven day a week schedule. Starting in early March, a college baseball player spends every weekend playing a three-game series consisting of one game on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Photo by: Adam Myers

In addition to the weekend series, there is usually a game on either Tuesday or Wednesday of each week as well. A college player participates in around 60 games during a single school year. This is substantially more than the majority of other college sports. In addition, half of the games are away games and require a significant amount of travel time.

A typical Friday consists of meeting at the team bus at around 6 in the morning to travel to the game. Breakfast is supplied on the bus, and many players either sleep or do homework during the course of the trip.

After a quick stop for lunch, you head straight to the field for pregame preparation and the game itself. After the game, the team checks into a hotel and has a team dinner followed by a team meeting to discuss the schedule for the following day. Lights out is at or around 11 p.m. for most teams.

The demanding schedule is familiar to all college student-athletes. It takes excellent time management skills and strong motivation to meet the requirements of both school and sport.

But the skills and work ethic that are developed from the experience are priceless.

Hopefully this three-part series gave you some idea as to the rigorous schedule a college baseball player faces week in and week out. And while it seems like an extremely heavy work load, when you love the game as much as most of us do, it's all worth it.