Royals open season with new coach

The Mountain Home Royals open their 2014 American Legion baseball schedule Saturday at home against the Boise Barons.

Michael Hobgood takes over the Royals this year and is excited about the players he has coming out.

"I know most of the guys from being a JV and varsity assistant, and being an assistant with the Royals last year, I know what they can do. The eighth graders, through the clinics that I run, I know most of them as well, and the Glenns Ferry kids are really impressive, so I think we have a great group of guys.

"My hope is to just continue to pile on to the groundwork that was already laid by Soapy (Walborn), DeVo (Travis DeVore), (Mark) Cotton, and Coach (Alex) Hoffman, and just to kind of build on top of that."

The 2005 graduate of Mountain Home High School played baseball while at Mountain Home, both for the Tigers and Royals, before moving up to AA ball with the Boise Gems his last two years of Legion ball.

He played ball for the Chukars at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Ore., before an arm injury ended his pitching career.

He also helped coach the Boise Gems before coming back to Mountain Home, where he's been an assistant the past two years. Hobgood is looking forward to his chance at leading the Royals.

"Every head coach, obviously, we're going to have our own little wrinkles we throw into things, but like I said, the groundwork's been laid, and there's not a lot that needs to be added on top, just subtle little differences here and there."

Hobgood likes the talent he sees in the 18 players that will make up the Royals this summer.

"I told the guys earlier our goal is not to win the state title -- that's our expectation. I think the difference there is a goal is something you strive to reach, and if you get there, great, and if you don't, you keep pushing. With it being our expectation, the guys know that anything short of that is a failure -- on my part, on their part, on everybody involved with the program's part, and I think, until someone proves otherwise, we're the best team in the country."

The Royals open Saturday with a home doubleheader against the Boise Barons and have basically two months packed with plenty of baseball action.

"I love that (our schedule)," Hobgood said. "We're playing 53 games -- we just added another one -- and that will give us the ability, with a lot of non-conference games, to throw guys into a lot of different situations and help prepare us for injury situations, guys not being able to be here, that kind of thing, and get a lot of guys valuable playing time, and then, when we do get our 18 conference games, just really go after those.

"That non-conference schedule will give us a chance to single out a conference starting nine, and just kind of run with that through districts, through state, but with that non-conference, playing that many games, I'll feel comfortable throwing anybody in any situation, knowing that they've played there, they've been there, they've done it, and hopefully we were very successful in doing that."

Coach Hobgood is looking forward to getting the season going.

"We're opening Saturday with a doubleheader against BK and then on Monday (June 2), we're honoring Soapy (Walborn), paying tribute to Soapy, and that's going to be a real cool deal.

"We've got a lot of guys coming back to watch that game, and we're playing a quality opponent -- we're playing Columbia, who runs a club like us, there will be a lot of varsity guys, and we're going to go with our senior, Levi Abrahamson, on the mound that night, and hopefully, we put on a good show. Saturday's games with Bishop Kelly will be conference games, so two very valuable games for us."

Assisting Hobgood with the Royals this year will be James Morris, Jake Hennessey, John Kenison and Skyler Podesek.