American Baseball Players Try Beach Cricket!

We're going to go outside to see how far we can actually hit balls. We got flags, we're going to set up the distances. Joe's has volunteered to go in the water in case we hit the balls in the water. I brought bathing suits for everyone. We're taking it outside. We're going to the beach and we're going to let it fly. And this is all presented to you by Mountain Dew AHA Blast. Where am I looking? Here? Here. Yesterday, we faced some really good players. I was going to say, and we held our own. We didn't hold our own is the problem. We lost by literally negatives. I'm interested about the team. It's been an interesting journey so far. We came in with really high hopes. Got absolutely humbled. And then on the car ride here this morning, our coach is talking about we need to work on our celebrations. Bro, we lost by 150 and our coach's note was celebrate. We're watching film on how to celebrate after losing by a buck fifty last night. There's a lot of things we could be working on. I'd love to celebrate as much as the next guy. There's a lot, a lot bigger things at hand here. I don't look at it as a tough day. Quite frankly, it was a learning experience. We weren't there to win yesterday. We're there to win in Barbados. And I felt like we got a lot better yesterday. So in my book, it was a winning day. I think the confidence is high. I think this group is going to be confident until we get like truly smacked in the face. Everyone's done a good job of just taking whatever small positive there is and being like, well, we'll run with that. Going to the beach, beach day. I mean, that's good for camaraderie. So I think it's galvanizing everyone. Getting to see everyone's personalities flourish. It's a good group of guys. But anytime you can spend time in a van singing songs, watching highlights, you're going to have better energy. So day three to get out of the indoor cages to the outside, that's helping. Songs were being sung on the bus. We watched some cricket celebrations. I learned how to throw a ball really high. If you take the ball, I believe is what a baseball catch is. Sorry, that's wrong. Can everyone see the bottom or can you not see it? Chad. What are you guys talking about? Can you guys see it? Vibes are incredibly high. I mean, we were going to the beach, right? So like in fifth grade summer camp, the vibes on the bus to the beach are high. Like, I don't care what you're doing. You're going to the beach with your buddies. That's what today is. Oh, I didn't have my hat. Oh, I don't give a ----. You know, you don't bring sand to the beach. You certainly leave with it. Today we're leaving with something. Experience. What you got for me? Bringing in another professional bowler. So the competition we face is quality and see where we stand. We got Steven Wigg, another professional player coming to help train us. I'm Steven Wigg. I'm a professional cricketer. I play for the Tech Super Kings in Major League Cricket. I'm part of the USA National Men's Cricket Team. And yeah, I'm just here to help the guys out with their tournament preparation. I've had as much experience as these guys. First time playing like an actual game on the beach. It's not a bad day. Nice to be out here. Lefty, left arm, pace bowler. If we just hit against ourselves, that's going to be pretty brutal. Also, give us some tips on the catching. You don't have a glove, so it's not one hand down low, one hand on top. It's kind of fingers for the sky. I know from watching cricket, but I've never actually put it into action. As a team, I think we need to cradle that ball a little bit more. It's bouncy. It looks like you should catch it every time, but it's a ball that can pop out of your hand. So we have to make sure we really cradle that thing like an egg. Personally, I think my biggest attribution to this team on the field will be my defense. I think that's kind of what I've been known for my entire life, like baseball, wiffle ball career, things like that. I've always been a good defender. Off the field, I'll be a glue guy, good vibes. I'll be singing on the bus, singing on the plane. That's what I do. But on the field defense, I think I'll shine. This sky, you know, yellow ball locked in the yellow sun is a problem, I foresee. But I think we're an athletic group. We haven't like looked up at the sky and caught a ball falling at us. Good test to go outside, look into the sun and see how good we are. How did it feel finally getting some work on the sands? Home sweet home. This is what I love. This is where I belong. I'm shirtless and shoeless. That's how I'm supposed to be. Two good days of indoor training, but I think the guys were ready to see how far they're actually hitting the ball, how far we're going to need to hit the ball when we get to the beaches in Barbados. We've been told the boundaries that we'll be playing are 30 yards, which is 90 feet. So basically, if you hit it over first base, that is a six. So that's rather short. So we wanted to put that to the test. All stood in the middle, walked 30 yards roughly, and then just drew a big circle in the sand, put our flags down. It looked great. We don't know how long we're going to be able to play on this before we get kicked out. This is actually as long as we don't get kicked off, which is likely. I think this is perfect. You know, it's just as beautiful as Barbados. The pitch is actually smaller than what I thought in my mind. I thought it would be like massive, right? And I think we're going to go for a lot of sixes just seeing what these guys are doing. Bowling-wise, we faced a really good bowler today, which is very good. The walkway allowed for the ball to bounce. You know, we got a good amount of time testing out what will be like the actual dimensions. The ball really rolled and was able to get to the boundary, not on the fly, but on the roll or on the bounce. And that's four runs. This is the signal, four runs. I'm very interested if that is going to be the case in Barbados. Because if fours are in play, we're not really going to be running between the wickets at all, which means we should fare better because we won't have to learn that part of the game. Now, I think that this sand here in Staten Island is nothing compared to what we're going to see in the beautiful island of Barbados. This sand plays fast. That sand plays better. Yes, I read that it was a cooler sand and not a hotter one. I agree with Coach Joe's. I think this sand is not nice sand. It's closer to dirt, you'd say. It's dark brown, it's tough, it's pretty firm. I think I agree with Joe's, that the better sugarcane sand or sugar sand will be much harder to get the ball to roll on. The ball was traveling quicker than we expected, I think, on the sand today. But at the same time, the bounce was quite uneven. You can't really predict where the ball is going to go sometimes if it's coming fast at you. On grass, you could predict a lot easier. Temperature of the sand, of this sand, is very cool. Once you get closer to the water, though, it starts to become real sand, so I'm kind of... maybe this is a fake beach. Boys are looking good out here today. I think most of them are natural athletes, you know, moving around the field well. A couple of the guys who actually were able to hit some big sixes. So I think definitely going into the tournament, there's definitely potential. A couple of errors from improvement. The one thing that I would love to see is that our team can be able to use more of the boundaries on the side. We still do got to work on running. We didn't do that today because we just hit sixes. I think the raw talent's there. Athleticism is there. And it is a smaller field, so you never know. They might come up with a really good performance on any given day and then surprise the team. Steven was awesome. I mean, he did everything we could have asked him for. I mean, helped us with fielding, helped us with bowling. It was good for us as hitters, again, to be on the sand and face a good bowler to know what it's going to be like. And Steven did a great job feeding us good pitches all day long. And honestly, I think like batting, I feel pretty comfortable. I think that's actually something we're going to be good at. We should hit a lot of sixes, I feel like. Nice bowling. I'm ready for it. We're good to go. Barbados. Two weeks. I'm there. Working on our verbiage. Stroke it! You stay down on it, too. When they hit it flush, when they feel good, when they middle it, they just all go, shot! A lot of the Indian or the Pakistan guys will go, shot, boy! And that's fun. When I was on the World Cup broadcast, I was like, oh, everyone says that. So maybe we'll try to say that. You know, we don't want to look a fool. We showed some celebrations. I showed them how a lot of cricket players will catch that ball and just throw it in the sky. I think Jake took a catch and then threw it right up in the sky. Looked good. Looked normal. I thought that the setup came through, like, better than what I thought in my mind. I thought it was going to be, like, a mess and then we were just going to make the best out of it. Clark! Clark! I respect it. It looked like they were going to go around for a minute, but they're going to go through and that's fine. It's their walkway at the end of the day. Two families, though. Two for the price of one. Honestly, remarkable how well this is working for us. It even got, you know, the people that work here wondering what we were doing and kicked us out from doing it. It worked too well, almost. Hi. How are you? To play? We didn't know how long it was going to last with our setup, which we loved, before we got kicked off. We had a heck of a run, man. We had a heck of a run out here, way longer than I thought we'd be. I gave us 15 minutes tops. We've been out here for what seems like years. It is a ramp for access to the beach for people that need help accessing the beach. You're using it? Yeah, yeah. For cricket? Yeah. OK, and it shouldn't be used for anything other than people going up and down. Totally agree. So rightfully, the guys said, please get off. And we said, fair, that's fine. We got to practice catching anyway. We'll work on some drills. Should we form a line? Yeah, you guys rotate it right behind those. Oh, get there. Yeah! Oh, man. No, Jimmy! What? Nope. You got to throw that back right. I'll play for top. Yeah! Jumpster. Nice. Oh! Nice. That's how the bros do it. Yeah. Hey, you interested in joining the squad, McDougs? Love it. Hey, coach, could you come catch one? You're our eighth fielder, Joe, so you got to get reps. So here's the ultimate test. Fly ball McFly is camped. Yeah! Yeah, coach! No! That's too deep. Yeah! We're out here grinding. We're grinding fly balls, boys. Joe! ****! Yeah, Joe! Guys! Coach, are you OK? I love the effort. Joe has to play defense for five balls every game. Coach! Yeah! Joe, you look like someone that might be going in that water now. Today, I learned that Ryan Cohen is going to be placed wherever we think the batter is going to hit the ball. He got to places on the sand that I don't think other people can get to. Wherever me and Joe think this guy is going to put the ball, Ryan's going to be our gun fielder. Norp, probably the number two. Ryan Cohen is a guy known for his athleticism, known for his defense. He's going to be great out there. What I love about Ryan, he loves the beach. He's going to put his body on the line. He's going to get sandy. He's going to dive. Kind of similar to myself. One of his biggest strengths is going to be him defensively, just tracking down balls, making sure no boundaries, blocking balls. He'll do a little bit of everything. Cohen's a really good, very athletic guy. Very happy with his effort out here in the sand. He just feels like he's at home. You know, look, I feel like a golden retriever. You throw a ball at the beach, I'm going to go get that ball. I don't care if it's a football, a spike ball, a cricket ball, a baseball. I'm going to get that ball. Any ball that's hitting Barbados, it might be another game. I'm going to go get the ball. Jumped in the water, which is a brave man to do that into that river of ocean kind of thing. Definitely not getting in the water in Staten Island. That's for sure. I am incredibly disappointed in my teammates that they didn't get in the water. Heard a lot of excuses. Sharks? We're in Staten Island. Water being cold, 74 degrees. It looks dirty. The sand is brown, and the water's a little brown because of it. Get over yourself. He just doesn't know any better, and that's fine. Good job, Colin! Atta boy! Coach Joes is just excited to be on the beach, I think. I think that's the biggest thing with Coach Joes. But hey, he got out there. Give him some credit. He was fielding with us not well, by any means. I heard that there's something called like a power play when we're out there, where Joes is actually going to have to come on and field. We found out in the rules, the batting team gets to choose one of the first four overs and say, this is our power play. Every run we score is double for these five balls. The defense also gets a defensive power play, where they are allowed to bring two extra fielders onto the sand for that over, those five balls. We have eight guys. Joes is the eighth. So that means Coach Joes will be playing for one over every game. I said, we don't really need that, I feel like. But it's fine. We'll have Joes out there. He fielded some balls. Joes has the biggest hands. Basically, they act as trampolines. Balls just hit them and bounce. But he caught a bunch. He dove. He was rolling in the sand. So, you know, that's going to be a big moment if Joes comes in for one over and does something to impact the game. You know, if we win it, it's going to be a miracle story for Coach Joes. I was running on the beach with J-Groove doing wind sprints and I was letting him know, come on, let's go. I was running with him. He's watching. He's trying to come up with ideas. They aren't coming to him. Because a coach that talks, does. And a coach that does, can talk. That made sense, oddly. I've been happier with Joes's coaching. He seems more invested than I thought he would be. Those guys right there are going to go to Barbados and learn something about themselves. I'm going to learn something about myself. See the world from a different view. And I can't wait for it. I said this earlier. I think today might be my favorite day of work I've ever had. I got to play sports at the beach, which is literally what I do on a day off. Vibes are high. And everybody's talking about winning a game. I want to go out there and shock the world and win the whole thing. Why not? Everybody else played for second place. Could you imagine this group getting on a plane with a trophy for cricket? That would be insane. I'd love that. I think this team can win a game. I'm looking forward to it. I believe in them. I think they can do it. I want to go revisit the people back at the Complex to see what happens now. I'm ready for it. All of this has been fun. People are confident. When we get to that first game, I think there's going to be some, oh ----, emotions that hit. I think there's going to be some nervous energy, for sure, that we will try and just squish. I don't know who we're facing. I think we could be all right. It's not going to look like it was our first time playing cricket, which I was concerned about. I legit thought we were going to show up to Barbados and the cricket players would be like, why are we facing these clowns? And I don't think it'll be that. But we have an MLB player. They don't have MLB players. Zoe played Little League, I'm guessing. So we have athleticism. If you just took six bodies and taught them all cricket at the same time, we would be the best team. I mean, obviously, I love everybody on this team. Jimmy's great. Jake's great. Coach Joe's doing his thing. Zoe knows I love him. Cohen, having Cole Tucker around is awesome. So we're going to have a lot of fun. I'm super excited that I get the chance to be part of this group because it's going to be fun win or lose, no matter what. This ends day three of practice. Appreciate everyone for watching. Hopefully you root for us. There's five teams in this tournament. I think we're guaranteed a game against everyone. If we win one game early, we're going to want to win the whole thing. You're going to be able to watch live on the CPL, Caribbean Premier League YouTube channel. Whole thing will be streamed live. So get in the chat, support us. Let them know you're there and cheering on. John Boy Media Cricket Club. We haven't said that. John Boy Media Cricket Team. Whatever you guys call us, JMC. And then we'll have another episode, behind the scenes, the things you didn't see. But if you want to see the results and see how we fare, tune in live. It's beautiful. This is what it's all about. New York. I don't know, not the city of brotherly love. That's fairly according to Shell, which he's right. All right, guys. That's a wrap. Yeah! Hope you enjoyed it.