University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Inside The War Room
October 7, 2007 | Baseball
Oct. 7, 2007
It took approximately 20 minutes for the 2008 version of the Carolina baseball team to be split into two teams for this week's Fall World Series.
But it took much longer than that for the chosen teams to finally settle on team names.
The Fall World Series is Carolina's annual intra-squad wrap-up to the fall practice season. The series is best three-out-of-five and the stakes are high - the losers will have a bit longer to run when the Tar Heels close out their fall workouts.
For draft day, head coach Mike Fox hands over control to his seniors, who serve as captains. There are six seniors on the 2008 roster: Chad Flack, Rob Wooten and Mike Facchinei head the temporarily named "Blue" squad while Seth Williams, Kyle Shelton, and Tyler Trice lead the "White" team.
In years past, the minutes just before the first selection have been fraught with strategizing and scheming. Not this year. This year, as the Diamond Heels assemble in their makeshift home in the football visiting locker room - demolition has almost completely hollowed out their regular home at "old" Boshamer Stadium - Trice takes the chance to make three lists on the white board. He headlines one column, "Good" and leaves it blank. Then he headlines the next list "Bad" and leaves that one blank, too. The third column is titled "Ugly," and that's where the Carolina reliever prints "Fed Ex" on the first line, in the place where the first draft pick would go.
Yes, thick skin is required in a baseball locker room. But Tim Federowicz doesn't mind. He's busy kidding Wooten that after consultation with his advisor, he's not sure he will sign with the team that picks him.
Trice's suggested teams are soon erased and Fox explains the rules. Each team has 90 seconds to make a pick. The coaches have paired every player on the roster with someone else, but only they know the pairs. So when the Blue team makes a pick, the White team is automatically assigned that player's match. It's an effort to make the teams fair and also try to ensure that one team doesn't wind up with 15 pitchers and 6 position players (although that turns out to be more difficult than you might expect).
After winning the coin flip, the Flack/Wooten/Facchinei squad selects Federowicz - ignoring the signability concerns - with the first overall pick. The junior catcher's pair is freshman Greg Holt, and the draft is underway.
Legitimate strategical moves - Flack and Wooten have a habit of discussing their picks with their hands over their mouths, as if Shelton might try to pirate their method of constructing a team - are interspersed with sarcastic advice for the captains. Garrett Gore unveils a dead-on impression of Matt Danford, who is missing his first Fall World Series draft since the last time Boshamer Stadium was under construction.
Eventually, the teams are fully stocked. It's wise not to ignore the final picks, because the very last selection of last year's draft, Wooten, turned out to be one of the team's most indispensable players during the spring. This year he's a captain, and he, Flack and Facchinei promptly name their squad the Carolina Blue Sox.
After a long period of deliberation, Trice and his squad reach back in history to 2005 and consider the name "Dirty 30s." It's a name with a Fall World Series pedigree, as it was the name of the winning 2005 squad, but they eventually settle on Sox Slayers in response to the oppositions moniker.
Fans are invited to all games of the Fall World Series, which will be played at Carolina's 2008 home in Cary. Game 1 is Tuesday at 2:30 p.m.
