baseball: my pastime

As I looked out the window at the rain coming down outside, I put down down The Trial and started to reminisce about baseball; my history, my sport. It started before I could remember, playing tee ball at Maybury. All I remember from that season I aforementioned I couldn't remember was that I think my coaches were lesbian and I was really bad. But that all changed as I got older. I learned to hit, field, and pitch just as well as anyone else we played. For once I was really gifted in a sport, I could hit any pitch and field any ground ball (not fly balls though).

That all changed at high school. Going into tryouts I felt pretty confident I could make the team. I strategically counted all the kids that played travel and subtracted that from the number of spots on the team. I arrived 20 minutes early to make a good impression, and then sulked around for another ten searching desperately for someone I knew. I finally decided to man up and stepped through the gym door. I looked to my left and there they were, all the kids I didn't know that were way better than me. I knew they sensed my intimidation, so I sat on the other side of the bleachers. To put it kindly, I was overwhelmed the first day. All the other players had their own bats, were friends with the players on varsity, and were 'cocky'. I went from the shit to plain shitty. I'm pretty sure the only reason I made the team was because our dear EMaise was pitching me batting practice. I was lucky: Uberti was throwing heat and the curve. But then came fielding, my specialty. If my batting was the mystery meat from the lunchroom, my fielding was the prime rib. In addition to wanting to impress Bill, it was a true life or death struggle, catch the ball or catch the ball in you teeth, I'm seriously surprised nobody got hurt. I've never seen Putman with such as terrified look on his face as he did that day. As Bill stood roughly 30 feet away on the other side of the auxiliary gym, he belted regulation baseballs at us with his fungo. Taking insane hops off the freshly waxed wood floor, the balls whistled by like bullets, making the less experienced players look like, well, look like we were playing dodgeball. As they dodged, dipped, ducked, dove, and dodged around, pants were torn, knees bled, and spirits were shattered.

Then we moved to turning double plays; myself thoroughly mediocre. We formed two lines behind 2nd base and short stop, and did what we were told. Gentle tosses and then hard throws to first. As I stood feeling pity for myself and awaiting my missed ground ball, Schafer kept on bragging about shit nobody cares about. We all noticed, and I was relieved to have a few glorious seconds of 'alone' time without him. Needless to say I, like the rest of us, were hoping to see someone get hit with a ball. But Putman took it into his own hands. In a brilliant display of "hey, f*** you buddy!", Nick fielded his ground ball cleanly, planted his feet, reached back, and released the ball as hard as he could at Mr. Schafer, no more than 7 feet away. The ball's short path ended with Ryan writhing on the floor, and the rest of us laughing. Now that was funny.

Our first practice I was a little nervous. I was obviously the worst player on the team, so I knew I had to make friends in order to avoid being the permanent team goat. So what did I do? I tore the shit out of Uberti, a seemingly idiotic move. I don't even know what I said, but Dave told me about it a while ago and just laughed. Apparently he made a joke about me, and I went apeshit on him, going into one of my crazy rants that only the really lucky have witnessed. I guess it's alot like making someone your bitch your first day in jail. But Dave was by no means my bitch. No, I was still the team bitch, which is pretty much what I stayed on for. Limited playing time, chasing foul balls/home run balls, and cleaning up after the game wasn't what I lived for, but rather what I tolerated. But I grew to like my new position; there's more to sitting on the bench than you think. For instance, I took it as my job to mock the other team and their obese coaches, especially those from Canton. Also, I deemed it necessary to put as many sunflower seeds as possible in Mullen's bag and then blame it on Tomsa. Finally, my more famous duty was to scope out any hotties at the game, especially the doubleheader in Ann Arbor; we all know how that one ended.

But let me tell you the story of how I saved the game/essentially won the Clarkston tournament. During our third game on the second day of the tournament I was sitting on the bench as usual, when coach Bill said in his pseudo-sympathetic voice, "Next inning you're going in for Hirka". Now coach knows I can't throw around the infield for shit, so when he told me I would be playing second base in a 1 run game in the final inning I was a little apprehensive. But nonetheless I trusted his faith in the baseball gods and tried to act excited.

Runner on second base, 1 out. I remember thinking:

"Shit, the ball's coming at me, shit, what do I do. Grab it you dumbass, shit shit shit, throw it to berti, shit I can't throw it, I'll miss him. 'Aim small miss small'. That only worked in The Patriot, shit! Just throw it you pussy." As soon as I let the ball go, I cringed a little. I saw the ball rise to the right, out of Dave's reach. He jumped off the base to catch it, and the runner was safe. "shit, now I've done it".

Fast forward through seeminly forever, runners on second and third, two outs.

"Do not screw this up, avoid the ball at all costs, let Liening catch the fly, and just smother the ground ball." The pitch went by the batter, strike one. "Thank God, only two more, do not screw this up, don't be the one to knock you're team out of this". Bang! It all happened in slow motion, the weak line drive started to tail towards second, Liening couldn't get there. "Shit, run...faster, get there". The rest just happened; unexplainable and instinctive. I saw second base and found the ball curving behind it. I slid, just like I was stealing, and as I went down I reached my arm across my body and flipped over my glove. Just above the red dirt of the infield I snatched the ball, and held it up high. "Out". "yes bitch, this game is over" I thought to myself. As I lay there thinking to myself about how much of a lucky son of a bitch I am, everybody ran over and jumped on me. "Shit, Mullen's coming". As Mullen jumped on me I couldn't help but feel relieved, they weren't here to kill me, but rather to congratulate me on not sucking. That first error was forgotten, and all was right.

That's about the time I stopped playing baseball. Sure, that was only halfway through our season, but I sucked anyways. I was the team leader in walks/hit by pitch, and was the only player with a four times higher on base percentage than batting average. Yes, If I can find a way to "succeed" anyone can. Baseball has been good to me, and I'd like to think I returned the favor. Word.

(I just realized there is spellcheck on blogger.com, so fear no more you grammar mongols. I don't know why it highlighted 'apeshit', that's a word)