July 3, 2009

Freshman right-hander Kelly Costantini is playing in the West Coast Collegiate League. He blogs to us from Silverdale, WA.

Kelly Costantini

Hello Dons baseball fans, I am writing from Kitsap, Washington where I play for the Kitsap Bluejackets. Kitsap is a county in Washington surrounded by water, with the Puget Sound and Seattle only about 45 minutes away. To be more specific, I am living in the small town of Silverdale, Washington (in Kitsap County).

Early in the morning on March 31st fellow Diamond Don Chris Escobar and I began our 12-hour drive from Stockton, CA to our host mom's house here in Silverdale. Upon our arrival Pam Hansen, our host mom, became very excited and immediately welcomed us into her home to show us our rooms. Pam is the Kitsap Bluejackets self-proclaimed #1 fan and is obsessed with baseball. Surprisingly there are many fans like Pam here. I guess that's what happens when you stick a good baseball team into a very small town with no other teams to root for. On average the attendance at our games is around 500-900 people, which doesn't sound like a lot, but if you were to come here you would wonder if there were even that many people who just live here! Even the players on the team have reached a certain "celebrity status." On many occasions people have recognized both me and other players simply shopping in the local grocery store and asked for our autographs. Players have also made the front page of the newspaper several times. That should give you an idea of how small this town really is...

Our team is made up of guys from all around the country as well as some locals. We have players from programs like Oklahoma State, UC Riverside, Texas Tech, Washington State and University of Washington. The competition in this league seems good so far and I am excited to go on some more road trips with the team and see some parts of the country that are new to me. I will also get the chance to visit with fellow Dons who play on different teams in this league like Garret Luippold, Nik Balog, Jordan Remer, and Kyle Lawton. The teams in this league (West Coast Collegiate League) are all located in the Northwest, which makes most of the bus rides relatively short, the longest being about 8 hours. There is one Canadian team, a few in Washington and a few more in Oregon.

Our team is currently 6-10 in league. We struggled a little bit at the beginning, but we have been winning some games lately and seem to be putting it all together. There is still a lot of season left and I am excited to see how it will unfold because this league seems to be pretty balanced.

So far it has been a blast playing here. It is a lot of fun to simply wake up and go play baseball everyday. Not to mention go hang out with the team on our off days. In our free time we have done many things. Going to Seattle, fishing, boating, and golfing are some of the things we have done as a team. It is also interesting to simply live here and experience a whole new lifestyle. Going from San Francisco to Silverdale was a major transition. In fact, Silverdale is probably just about as opposite as you could get from San Francisco, if you could imagine that...

Like I said, I am really enjoying myself here playing baseball, meeting new people, and living a new lifestyle. Silverdale is a great to place to both live, play baseball and make memories that will last forever. Go Dons