The annual Irish Fall Classic is a cherished tradition for the Notre Dame baseball team, where the roster divides into blue and green squads and competes in a three-game series. The winning team earns the right to dress the locker room mannequin in their colors, a symbol of their triumph until the next fall.
This year, the blue team claimed the victory. The Observer sat down with senior catcher Joey Spence who talked about the tradition and how the Irish Fall Classic brings the team together.
You are the senior catcher on the blue team and you guys won this year, how does that feel as a senior to be able to win that tradition for your team?
“I mean, it is always fun because we always feel the hype around the clubhouse, and the coaches do a good job of kinda amping up the energy around it, and I haven’t won a Fall World Series in my freshman, sophomore or junior year, so this is the first year that the blue team won. But it is definitely a lot of fun. The series is more for bragging rights, and it is just a fun, competitive thing to do for the team. We’re all jawing with each other during the week leading up to the series. It was a lot of fun, and we all played hard — there was a lot of energy and a lot of good things. It’s fun to get the young guys or the freshmen — we have such a talented freshman class — and just getting those guys engaged and involved in all this, to see the energy that we have with all of the guys you know just trying to win a baseball game, it was a really cool thing.”
How do you think this affects team bonding going into the season? Do you think it will help with winning games this season?
“Oh for sure ... The day prior or earlier in the week we had a paintball outing to determine who had home-field advantage. So we all went to a paintball place in Mishawaka and split the team up — green versus blue — and whatever team won all of the courses got the home-field advantage. So it was definitely — especially being on campus over fall break when all of the students were gone and we didn’t have any class and we just got to spend all day around each other — I think it was big for our team just to kinda mesh together if that makes sense. And we have a lot of really good dudes on our team and everyone gets along and we all love each other already. It was really good.”
Talk me through the idea of a first draft or second draft when you are choosing teams at the beginning of the year?
“So we do what is called a dynasty draft. My first year doing it there was a blue team, green captains and blue captains, and so I got drafted to the blue team last year, so that means that I stay on the blue team this year. So the freshmen that got drafted to the blue team this year will be on the blue team for the next three or four years, so it’s kinda cool — the dynasty aspect. You’re either trying to build a team to win now or you’re trying to look towards the future. It’s a lot of fun. It’s almost like playing a video game — you’re trying to make a dynasty team. We did have some trades. We had trades last year and we have one more trade this year, but for the most part everyone stays on the same team their whole time here.”
You mentioned trades, how do those work or why do they happen?
“It’s usually based off of if a team doesn’t have enough position guys or a team has too many pitchers — just the logistics stuff to make sure that everyone has the right guys for the right spots here and there.”
