With spring hanging like an icicle precariously over us, Whitman’s top sports team returns to the field for what promises to be another successful year. But while the Sweets toss the disc around as casually as they toss around phrases like “nice huck, breh” and “do you think this up-bid will get me in Skyd Magazine, D?”, men’s baseball will also be taking to the field. Despite the fact that the baseball team has won only five of its 35 to 40 games every year for more years than most of its players can even count, they remain optimistic with the hiring of a new coach.

Newly hired Coach John Finney has taken a whole new direction with the team that promises much greater success.

“Year after year, this team goes out and embarrasses itself en route to what promises to be a five-win season. This year, we will be much more respectable and efficient in our pursuit of five wins. We have assembled a group of young men––boys, really––that are poised to lose almost 90 percent of their games better than anyone before them.”

The team has been practicing tirelessly to become the best five-win team in the country. The pitchers spent all practice working out their necks so that they can crane them to watch the massive home runs they trained themselves to give up. Some of the older hitters have stepped up into mentoring roles, showing the first-year players how to strike out against even the slowest pitchers.

“We are really coming together as a team, which is great because we are one,” said senior pitcher Kyler “Missile” Griswald.

The team has even been sighted watching film in the Sherwood Athletic Center to prepare for the toils of the long season. Those who walked by most evenings recalled seeing glimpses of the team in the multimedia room watching replays of the Seattle Seahawks Divisional Playoff loss.

“Seattle just manages to #findaway. That is what we aspire for. And the unmerited confidence? The ‘wait until next year’ mentality? It’s like the Mariners on steroids,” said second basemen John Chrandrews, wearing a size extra-small Bret Boone jersey.

Those who follow Whitman baseball, or––more likely unless they have offspring on the team––those who see them around campus, know that the “unmerited confidence” is a quality the team has mastered over years of poor win-loss records. Many anonymous sources cited times where the team, which costs more than the annual salary of an archives assistant to send across the nation to lose to teams outside of the Pacific Northwest, acted “entitled” or “like they were the greatest thing to happen to this school since Macklemore released whatever his last song was.”

Alaskan designated hitter Eric Owen, who was recently reinstated after being investigated for a bounty scandal following a historic year of hit-batsmen, does not let the community backlash affect him.

“Win or lose, I’m still dating the hottest cheerleader at the school,” Owen said. When asked what he meant by “cheerleader,” Owen replied “the hot one.”

Although this season promises the familiarity of badly played games in even worse weather, those involved with the program look forward to reaching new highs in low standards.

“Except with girls,” Owen reiterated.