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Chris Joseph |
Sometimes a baseball’s for studying. Velocity. Resistance to air pressure. The mechanics of throwing. The properties of a curve ball tossed from 60’6”.
And sometimes it’s just for playing with.
That was the approach of recent MSME graduate Chris Joseph.
Joseph had been playing baseball since he was a lad playing tee ball. An outfielder, he ultimately advanced to playing in high school and in competitive federation baseball leagues. In all, he had played about 10 years of federation baseball and all 4 years in high school. Now, he can add one year of club-level baseball to his resume.
A long-time fan and player, the Troy, Michigan native found that the best way to make sure he had a game going was to start Michigan’s first club baseball team in 2004. Rather than wait to try to play in summer leagues, he set out to make sure it was game on for himself and other players in the area. He started dealing with the University and the National Club Baseball Association (NCBA) in August 2004, and by February 2005 the team was ready to play.
“There was quite a lot of work involved in starting the team,” said Joseph. “It was like adding another class to my schedule, which was already full to begin with! For the University to consider our proposal for club status for baseball, we had to show there was an interest baseball at that level. That part was easy. It was actually harder to find a home field to play on. Finally, we got a confirmation from the city of Ann Arbor that we could use one of the city fields at Veterans Park and we were on the way.
“Once the field was locked in, three of my friends, Trevor Scott, Gabe Kloet and Matt Ransweiler, and I took positions as officers, which was required. Then we spread flyers around campus to let people know that we were going to hold tryouts, and we had a pretty good turnout.” One other ME student, undergraduate Joseph Ypma, made the team.
At the same time, Joseph and his friends were dealing with the NCBA, which needed assurances that the University would recognize baseball as a club sport. This was a labor of finance as well as love, as $1,500 had to be raised to join the NCBA, which enabled them to play sanctioned games and develop a schedule.
The first season was a little rocky, as the team complied a 3-11 record. Like most players and fans--the “wait till next year” cry exists even at the club level--Joseph noted that “even though the record doesn’t show it, we played a lot of close games and some cleaner play would have resulted in more wins.”
Naturally, there were a few hitches along the way, as would be expected in the first year of operating.
“For our first game, we were to play Michigan State in a Friday night game, ironically on April 1st,” said Joseph. “When our team arrived at their field after a hour and half drive, we found it empty. After talking to their team president, it turned out that for some reason the city had cancelled the game. The only problem was that they forgot to inform me! So, basically we practiced on their field that night and chalked up the situation to another detriment to attending Michigan State University.”
Perhaps more important than the team’s record was the feeling Joseph had when he first put on the University of Michigan jersey. “We all had the same feeling. We felt great. We felt like the real deal with our Michigan uniforms on, and I personally felt like all the hard work and time was worth it.”
Joseph’s confident view of the team’s upcoming season is tempered by the fact that he took a position in June 2005 as a Mechanical Design Engineer working in the Power, Thermal, Structures & Power Product center with Lockheed Martin in California and won’t be able to play. In this position, which he found through the College of Engineering’s career fair, he’s supporting the commercial solar array division, but is hoping to soon switch over to the mechanisms group.
He also noted that his education has served him well. “I always wanted to work for Lockheed,” he said. “I’ve always been fascinated with space and aircraft, so this was a natural path. Basically, the whole breadth of my studies in ME has prepared me for this job. It’s not just the specific knowledge that I picked up while at Michigan, but rather the learning process that was instilled in me. I feel like after my great Michigan education, if I don’t know something, I can learn it and learn it quickly.”
While he’s pleased about his professional activities, he still has some regrets about his other love. “I’m very optimistic about next year’s team,” he said. “I just wish I were going to be around to see it!”