With 11 players, no job is too small for Catskill baseball players

While head coach Eric Joyce certainly relies on players like Chase Allen to pitch a bulk of the innings for the Cats, and hit atop the lineup, role players like Cody Coleman are just as important.

Coleman recently returned to playing baseball, helping out his friends form a team, after spending much of his time focusing on football and wrestling.

“Cody’s just an amazing kid. He’s a great football player and an excellent wrestler, and he’s one of our backup outfielders, but he’ll do anything I ever ask of him,” Joyce said of Coleman. “He’s always the one that keeps the team up, and never gets down about anything. It doesn’t matter how much he plays, he’s just always a team player and is a true leader.”

“My buddy Chase [Allen] and the coach, they got me to play,” Coleman said of making his return to the diamond. “I’ve known everyone on the team since I was little; they’re all great people.”

Coleman, who played on the junior varsity team last season in his first year back playing baseball, had some things to get used to.

“Definitely the speed and timing were a big adjustment,” he said.

However, Coleman’s willingness to play anywhere and be a true team player has allowed Joyce to leave younger players on the junior varsity team – where they will have more playing time than they would on varsity.

“We have some very talented players on JV, but if I bring them up to varsity and am not able to get them the playing time they need, it’s a disservice to them,” Joyce said. “If I’m going to bring up a younger kid, I’ve got to play them. We went with 11, and we’re going to make it work.”

So far this season, the Cats (2-5 overall) have been on the wrong end of some close games, including one-run contests against Cairo-Durham and Coxsackie-Athens, and a wild 14-10 loss to Maple Hill on Tuesday.

Chase Allen has done most of the work on the mound, tossing 15 innings, and has posted a .450 batting average. He is 9 for 20 at the plate with four RBIs.

“He does, he absolutely does, but he’s been doing it for a long time and it’s nothing new to him,” Joyce said of Allen. “He’s been a great player for us, he’s up for the challenge.”

After starting the season as the leadoff hitter, Joyce moved Allen up to hit leadoff as well.

“It’s early in the year, so I’m trying to find a lineup that works,” Joyce said. “We were struggling at the plate for a few games and Chase has been swinging it well since the beginning, so I put him up at the top to get him the most at-bats.”

“I just show up every day and try to do my best wherever they put me,” Allen said. “I’ll go wherever they want, I’ll hit first, last or middle – it doesn’t matter to me.”