July 23, 2009

ARLINGTON, Texas - Michael Choice and the USA Baseball National Team (Collegiate) have earned plenty of frequent flyer miles this summer while posting a 16-5 overall record this summer. Team USA's most recent venture was a week-long trip to Japan and will now finish its summer schedule at the World Baseball Challenge in Prince George, British Columbia.

Choice, who will begin his junior year at UT Arlington this fall, is only the second player in Southland Conference history to play for Team USA (Greg Kubes, Sam Houston State - 1997).

Choice is batting .340 with Team USA and hit his first home run during a 10-2 win over host-team Prince George on Wednesday night.

He is fifth on the team in batting and has three doubles, one home run, 10 RBI and three stolen bases. His .460 slugging percentage and .453 on-base average place him among team leaders and he has hit safely in 10 games this summer.

Team USA lost to Japan in the fifth and deciding game during the 37th annual USA vs. Japan Collegiate Championship series before starting the World Baseball Challenge with a 3-1 record. Choice said the trip to Japan wasn't as difficult as he thought it would be, but rather more of a challenge once they got there while adjusting to the time difference.

"It was about a 14-hour flight," Choice said of Team USA's flight from Toronto to Japan. "But it wasn't bad because they had TV screens inside the headrests and they had movies and TV shows that we could watch, so the flight wasn't that bad. But when we left Toronto it was six in the morning and when we got to Japan it was three in the afternoon, so we had to try and stay awake so we could sleep at night."

The trip to Japan started in Boston with a flight to Toronto and then finished with a flight to Airport Tokyo in Japan.

Team USA opened the Japan series with a 3-0 shutout and grabbed a 2-1 series advantage with an 8-4 win after a 7-5 loss in game two. Team USA wasn't able to win the series with a third victory as Team Japan won games four and five with an 8-3 (Game 4) and 8-7 victory in the final game in 11 innings.

Continuing to experience different cultures and atmospheres, Choice said the Japan atmosphere proved that baseball reigned supreme with Japan's hometown fans.

"It felt like in Japan that baseball is the main sport with their fans, unlike America where it seems like football is our main sport to our sports fans," Choice said. "Baseball is a big deal over there, they had a lot of fans at all of their games and they were filling up the stands."

Team USA played in five different stadiums in Japan, including Jingu Stadium, Tsuruoka Dream Stadium, Miyagi Stadium, Botchan Stadium and the Tokyo Dome, which seats 55,000.

"The Tokyo Dome was really nice," Choice said. "It was a great experience to play on that field and in that dome. Picking up fly balls off that ceiling was kind of hard at first but we just got used to it eventually. I had so much adrenalin playing in all of those nice stadiums. We also played at a great stadium at Sendai, which was a really nice stadium also."

Choice also realizes this summer's experience with Team USA is providing him exposure to many of the top scouts that are evaluating collegiate prospects for the Major League Baseball draft in 2010.

"The exposure is great," Choice said. "When we were back in North Carolina (during the trials and beginning of the summer) I can't even count how many scouts were at our games. I'm not sure about the scouting situation in Canada or in Japan, but I know we have played in front of a lot of them this summer."

With only a week of Team USA's schedule remaining, Choice has nothing but positive feelings about his experience with Team USA from being invited, through the trials and now through a month of competition with the top returning collegiate players in the country.

"It has been a great experience," Choice said. "Going back to the trials, that was probably the hardest part because everyone was trying so hard just trying to make the team. We would be out there practicing, lifting and playing throughout the entire day for two weeks, which was probably the hardest part. Once we all made the team we were able to just relax and play and enjoy the summer."

Choice and Team USA will complete their summer schedule with games against Chinese Taipei (July 23), Beijing (July 24) and Germany (July 25) and with the World Baseball Challenge Finals set for Sunday, July 26.

Michael Choice
On adjusting to the time difference after landing in Tokyo, Japan...
- "I didn't really adjust to it for about three days of being there. I was just tired and wanted to go to sleep in the middle of the day. We just had to force ourselves to stay awake just so you can sleep at night. We would wake up at 3 in the morning and it would feel like it should be 10 in the morning."

On Japan's pitchers...
- "They had a couple guys who threw splitters, but they didn't throw them that much. The main difference was their pitchers' sliders broke really hard."

On Japan's hitters...
- "Their hitters are really good. The thing about their hitters is they didn't hit for much power - except one of their guys - but all of the rest of them just threw their hands at the ball and hit the ball hard. They were line-drive hitters, just never popped the ball up."

On the fans and playing environment in Japan...
- "Baseball is a big deal over there. That is their main sport and their fans came out and there were just a lot of fans at all of the games. Their fans are just like our fans though, they come up to you and want your autograph. Sometimes they wanted autographs more than the fans in North Carolina and Massachusetts. We had a lot of fans that would follow us around. They would be at the hotel and would be waiting for us to come out to meet us."

On traveling back to Canada and how the travel is taking a toll on the players...
- "The travel to Canada wasn't as bad because we had already experienced that trip going out to Japan. I guess everyone is a little tired of traveling because we did so much flying and busing and training while we were over in Japan. That is the good thing about being in Canada right now. We are in one spot and we don't have to worry about packing things up and going somewhere each day."

On having two visitors come and see him (UTA head coach Darin Thomas and UTA assistant coach K.J. Hendricks)...
- "It was great to see them. I was expecting them because they told me they were coming. I was happy to see them because my parents haven't been able to come see any of the games and I haven't had anyone come watch me play, so seeing familiar faces was nice."

For complete coverage of Michael Choice with Team USA follow his daily updates at www.utamavs.com