2B - April 16, 2012 0 The Michigan Daily -michigandaily.com SPORT SMOND tgb ,n0gb tM I want to go back I need to go back to Michigan D ear Mom, I'm sorry it took four years for me to apologize. You were in the kitchen, remember? I told you to shut up, like the punk who used to say things like that to his mother. It was just' as we were leaving the house, on our way to Ann TIM Arbor for my ROHAN freshman year, and you were singing: I want togo back to Michigan, To dear Ann Arbor town, I want to go back; I got to go back, To Mich-i-gan. I didn't know I would be hum- ming the famous Michigan Glee Club tune in my head as I drove back, withoutyou, three years later for my senior year. Maya took me back, but now I wish you had, too. I've shared this place with so many people, but you were the first. That day, before freshman year, you were smiling wide, I remem- ber, and pumpi g your fists, and I was shushing you. Im sorry. Back then, I hadn't sat and talked all nightwith people who would be considered strangers, if only we hadn't gone to the same university. I hadn't shown up at a friend's Seder as a practicing Catholic, expectingto know two people, and known the whole dinner party from somewhere or another. I hadn't gone on a midnight slushie run with Matt Campbell. I hadn't dropped everything, on one of those brisk springnights to play midnight games of one-on-one and to catch up with Joe Stapleton on the basketball courts outside of the CCRB. I hadn't known how lucky I would be to have a mother who shared her school with me. Mom, thanks. It's been long overdue. Wandering one afternoon - while I probably should've been studying (sorry) - I went out of my way to find your old room in South Quad. It's still there. So filled out the cast and made this Michigan, my Michigan. On the day I wrote this letter, I went to lunch at Zingerman's Deli for the first time at the urg- ing of Zach Helfand, Everett Cook and Neal Rothschild. I had the No. 54, a chicken sandwich, the best chicken sandwich I've ever had. Too full to move after lunch, I drove my friends down to Michigan Stadium and pointed to the Big House and to the under- construction Crisler Arena. I told the two aspiring sportswriters and economics whiz-kida lesson I came to learn when Dad died: prioritize as you wish, but there is more to life than what happens in those two buildings. Stop and look around every once in a while. Mom, I've run into Jed Moch on a Thursday afternoon and cancelled my day's plans to head to Dominick's. I've spent most of my Friday afternoons at the IM Building - where you used to ; . swim laps - playing basketball with Matt Kautz and Nick Mat- tar. I've stayed up until six in the morning freestyle rapping - with varying levels of coherency - 'A with Abhi and Tepatti and Kondo and Benevides and Nelson. Coutesy of Christine Soha Hopefully not too far from now, everyone mentioned in this letter and those not will nning streak doesn't come back and reminisce, hav- I'm gone. ing shared this Michigan with :rrelle Pryor and each other. I wouldn't have been lock arms with their here without you, and now, as I'm Haying together as leaving, I realize my Michigan is seshoe serenaded your Michigan as yours is mine. of me, for my own And the next time we come back eye fight-song con- together, you and I, we'll sing in the endzone. together and the words will mean in my head was the somethingto me. ed to sing, with as I want to go back to Michigan, "The Victors": To dearAnn Arbor town, Ohio State I want to go back;Igot to go nothingpar-ty back, To Mich-i-gan. ks for funding my Love, Tim 0 0 9 Former Managing Sports Editor Tim Rohan (right) at age 4, carving a pumpkin with his father, Tom Rohan. is the Tri-Delt house where you once lived; so is the old engineer- ing school that you pointed out when you first brought me here. I was no older than 14, and James must've been 12, but we were too naive to appreciate those places. I hope you weren't too mad at us. Racingthrough the Law Quad while you reminisced, James and I tossed the football back and forth over Tappan Street. You wanted to stop and look around; we wanted to keep going. Now, I get it. I'm older, more mature, but I've also lived here for four years, trying my best to channel my inner Ferris Buel- ler, who said it best: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it;" It seems easier now to live like the wheels in a clock, constantly moving forward while witnessing and living in the present and smil- ing at the past. It's easier for me, I think, because Dad died when I was 7, when he was first diagnosed, and taught me to appreciate life up until he passed away my fresh- man year at Michigan. Mom, thanks for raising James and me as best you could. And don't blame Dad, but his Parkinson's disease drove me to find something worth loving to do for the rest of my life. I found The Michigan Daily. Mom, I'm sorry I'm not the engineer you wanted me to be, but the Daily never felt like work. I know you're holding out hope, hinting not-so-subtly how grad school is an option "down the road, Timmy." But writingsports, I get the same warm, fuzzy sensation Taylor Lewan described after winning the Sugar Bowl: "It's the feeling you get when you see a box of kittens." My box-of-kittens passion isto tell stories, to meet people worth telling others about, to stop, to look around, and to make sure I don't miss a single moment. I think that's why I have come to (somewhat) amicable terms with graduating - I've spent my four years trying to find stories either to write about and to live out. I've seen Notre Dame Stadium go from deafeningto silent in the span of one Denard Robin- son miracle drive. I've seen Red Berenson explain to Michael Florek and me how today's hockey pucks are made. I've seen another Robinson miracle, a pass heading right toward me on the sidelines, land in Roy Roundtree's chest, foiling Notre Dame again. I've quarterbacked the Daily to a comeback win over The State News. I've lost my starting spot and have been berated, and we still beat the Michigan State stu- dent newspaper. I've been unde- feated in four years against them, and I'll be damned, Mom, if our seven-year wi continue once I've seen Te DeVier Posey1 teammates, sw the entire Hor them in front' personal Buck cert as I stood What I heardi version you us much vigor as Down with: It's a know- school Mom, than] roadtrips and my unpaid intern- ships - thanks, really, for funding this passion that you still aren't a fan of. Thanks for believing in me. For a critical thinker like you, it doesn't make sense that your tuition money wasn't spent entirely on classroom schooling. If I claimed that, I'd be a liar. To be honest, it wasn't all about the Daily, either. It was about those things, and the characters, who Dad, I miss you. Mom, thank you. Grandma and Grandpa, thanks for reading. Little bro James, good luck. Patches, thanks for keeping me sane. To everyone else, it'sbeen real. -Rohan wants to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to read his sometimes offensively long, always carefully crafted stories. Despite injuries, youth, 'M' takes one from Penn State e ByISABELLAACHENBACH Daily Sports Writer This weekend's three-game series against Penn State sums up the Michigan baseball team's season pretty well - full of dra- matic, and often unexpected, ups and downs. On Friday, Michigan won, 7-3. But Saturday's game took a 180-degree turn, and the Wolver- ines suffered its greatest loss of the season, 14-1. The team came close to winning the series on Sunday, but they couldn't quite "get over the top," as Michigan coach Rich Maloney says, and the Wolverines lost again, 6-4. A huge set-back for Michgan right now is the amount of play- ers who are out with injuries. Freshman left fielder Will Drake, sophomore right fielder Michael O'Neill and redshirt senior right- hander Travis Smith have all recently been forced onto the bench because of various hand and foot-related injuries. Junior shortstop Derek Dennis and red- shirt senior right-hander Kolby Wood are also out of the line-up and have only made a few appear- ances this entire season. Redshirt junior left-hander Bobby Brosnahan is another play- er who's been hurting. Though he does not have a serious nor iden- tifiable injury, he hasn't had the arm strength to start in games the way he did in the start of the season. "He just needs to get (his arm) stronger so it feels better for him when he competes," Maloney said. "Hopefully now that he's had some time off he'll be coming back pretty soon." The lack of healthy starters has put a lot of pressure on the remaining players to perform well in their place. Senior right-hander Bran- don Sinnery is one of the start- ing pitchers who has played exceptionally well in the past few weeks. He started off the weekend after having one of his best performances in last week's series against Michigan State, in which he left the field with a standing ovation, having allowed no runs in 8.1 innings of work. On Friday, Sinnery pitched a complete game for the second time this season. He allowed 10 hits, but just two earned runs and an unearned run. He struck out six Penn State hitters and has improved his record to 3-3. "Sinnery was outstanding," Maloney said. The fifth inning locked in the win for Michigan. The Wolver- ines were down by one, but senior catcher Coley Crank and sopho- more first baseman Brett Winger each got an RBI and redshirt junior left fielder Kevin Krantz got two. The Nittany Lions scored once more in the fifth, but that was their last run across home plate. Michigan scored twice more - once in the eighth inning and once in the ninth. Friday was the highlight of the Wolverines' weekend. Satur- day, on the other hand, was the lowlight of the weekend, if not of their entire season. Because so many players are injured, many of the younger guys are having to step up. That might have been part of the problem on Saturday. "Some of these guys are thrust into the line-up and, in some cases, we're seeing some good results, and in other cases we're not seeing such good results," Maloney said. Five pitchers split the time on the mound, but the decision in the 14-1 loss was given to freshman left-hander Trent Szkutnik, who pitched two innings and gave up five hits and six earned runs. 0 PAULSHEMuN/Daily Senior pitcher Brandon Sinnery pitched a complete game in Friday's win. The Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies presents World Leaders Respond to the European Crisis: A View from Warsaw and Prague [ r F. Aleksandier Kwasniewski Petr Pithrmt President of Poland Prire Minister of the Czech Repubic 1995-2005 19901992 TUESDAY, APRIL 17 .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... ............................. . . . .. . . . . 4:00 PM RACKHAM AMPHITHEATRE .. ......... ..... ..... ..--.-. --. 915 E. WASHINGTON STREET ... .. E..... A..... N............ T........ ........................................................... ANN ARBOR .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... . .. . .................................................... . . . .. . . . . www.ii.umich.edu/wced WCEoO AT "This outing, (Szkutnik) strug- gled," Maloney said. "But he's a freshman and he's got good stuff. We believe in him." Freshman right-hander James Bourque relieved Szkutnik on the mound. His performance was not much better, though, and he allowed three runs in 2.1 innings. Freshman right-hander Mike Dolloff finished off the game for Michigan. Once again, one of the freshman pitchers let down the team. Dolloff allowed four runs in his inning of work. Junior center fielder Patrick Biondi knocked in the only Mich- igan run of the game on a base hit to right field. "Unfortunately, because of the situation that we're in with all these different people being out, we have to throw some people in earlier than we would have liked to," Maloney said. "But we are very confident, and we think over time it will pay off in the big scheme of things. There's going to be some ups and downs when you're dealing with that many inexperienced players." Junior right-hander Ben Bal- lantine thinks all of the freshman are a great addition to the team, and he's glad that the younger players are getting more opportu- nities now. "We love having the younger guys with us," he said. "They're real supportive. We have all of these freshmen in the dugout with us, and they're the loudest ones, cheering us on." Ballantine played the first six innings in Sunday's game and allowed only one earned run and one unearned run. By the beginning of the sev- enth inning, Penn State was up, 2-0. By the end of the inning, Penn State was still up but the score had changed, 5-3. Both teams scored one more run in the eighth, but Michigan couldn't catch up in the top of the ninth. "We came down here on a mis- sion to get the job done, and we were close to doing that, but we just couldn't get over the top," Maloney said. Maloney is expecting that none of the injured players will be healthy enough to play in this weekend's series against North- western. "Hopefully we'll get some of these guys back, but in the mean- time we've got to claw our way to victory and try to win a couple series this year just by battling," Maloney said.