Boggstown – Among all the hoopla surrounding the presentation of the postseason HBL awards Wednesday night, there was one thing missing…the Boggstown Boilers. Despite the fact that the Boilers were the most featured team in the awards, they showed their appreciation (or lack thereof) to the league and the media by staying home and practicing.
“We’re baseball players. We’re not show ponies trying to win ribbons at the county fair. We have an HBL banner to defend, that’s all we care about right now”, explained McKeon. In all, 9 individual awards were given out to Boiler players, including the MVP, Frisch, Cy Young, and 6 silver sluggers. The manager’s attitude has apparently been embraced by the players as well, who responded well to maintaining their practice schedule in lieu of attending the awards. “Really, our team just isn’t made up of guys that get into that stuff,” said Charlie Hough, winner of his first ever Cy Young award. “Robin and George have set the standard around here. They’ve both won lots of awards, but neither one makes a big deal about it or celebrates it. They’ve drilled it into all of us that we will work harder than anyone else and winning games is the only real reward we look for.”
That mentality was especially prevalent in the second half of the season, when the Boilers broke a fist place tie with the Fogelberg Falcons to win their last six games of the season. “If there was a turning point in our season, that was it,” according to Boiler lifetimer Amos Otis. “We were 4-2, tied for 1st place, feeling pretty fine about our situation. Then Coach McKeon laid into us. He said we were better than this, we’d let a few games get away with errors and bad pitching, and we got lucky in a few close games. He said, ‘We have six games left. Let’s just go out there and let our nuts hang, boys. Let’s wrap this thing up, then we can get an extra week of practice and go balls out for the playoffs.’ That really set a fire under us and we’ve been going all out since then.”
“Our record is 0-0, as far as I’m concerned,” said McKeon. “That sure as hell isn’t going to win us anything. We’re going to be facing a team that will be fresh off a series victory, so they’re going to be as confident as anybody. I want our boys to be just as hungry as any team out there. We’re working hard, that’s all I can tell you.”
Perhaps if the league ever hands out a Manager of the Year trophy, McKeon will change his mind about awards. Unless that trophy is in the form of a Cuban cigar, however, it’s highly unlikely that McKeon will ever bend his resolve.
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