Posted on 08/16/2017 10:27:21 PM PDT by Enchante
I was kind of relegated to it.
I used to always play outfield, primarily left.
Where most of the action was.
Some younger guys had better wheels than me, and I started losing the long throws. I’d be icing my shoulder and elbow 2-3 nights a week. It just wasn’t worth it.
Infield didn’t require as many throws and never as far.
I had sure hands, so it was either first or catcher.
My size and fearlessness made me a shoe in at catcher.
We had one game that had gotten a little testy.
We had a slide or avoid contact rule at home plate.
If there was ever the possibility for a play at home, my first reaction after a hit was to step out in front of the plate.
Unless there wasn’t a play, then I’d step off, to clear the plate.
Well this one time, one of the hot heads of the other team was coming in and he didn’t slide or avoid.
There was a throw to me but it came in a little to my right, so I had to turn a little and reposition my right foot.
Which gave the runner my left side.
The ball arrived a split second before he did.
Just enough to grab the ball hard and set my feet.
He came in square to my shoulder
And laid HIMSELF out.
The ump was almost laughing when he called him out and then threw him out of the game and then called his team to help walk him off the field.
We had one guy on one of our teams. He pitched baseball for the US in the Pan Am games, but he’d play left field or center for us.
ACCURATE????!!!!
A ball was hit out deep to him, he had to turn to run and catch it. He caught it about 10 feet before the fence and turned and threw it straight in, as there was a runner coming in.
I was one small step in front/over the plate.
The ball hit my glove about 6” above the dirt.
Maybe 1/10 of a second before the runners foot hit my glove.
I had to look in my glove to make sure it was there.
During warm ups, he was throwing the ball around.
He came to me as the game is starting and told me “my ball is trailing to your right, it’ll break about 6’ before it gets to you.”
“Don’t move!!! It’ll be there”
Did EXACTLY as he said.
Never saw anybody that dead nuts accurate, especially from the outfield.
ESPECIALLY DEEP in the outfield.
wow, good times!
thx for the stories!
There’s nothing I would have loved as much as a life activity as to be a great baseball pitcher. I had a little taste of it only as an 11 yr old.... I absolutely mowed down my opponents in Little League, striking out 2 and often 3 batters each inning (not much fun for them but lots of fun for me and my team). For some reason (luck of nature) my physical development didn’t keep up with my peers, and within a couple of years I gave up pitching entirely.... but it was my favorite thing in sports when I was (briefly) really good at it. Nothing more intense than staring down the opposing batter and trying to throw the ball past him..... ahhh, those were the days.
Why would you not at least practice before going out and making an ass of yourself.
The back story is that exactly 10 years before, he was seven and a cancer survivor, and as part of the Jimmy Fund drive he threw out the first pitch and then, on his own, ran the bases, to cheers from the crowd. It was a heart warming moment.
Now he is a pitcher on his high school baseball team, and he was invited to relive the moment on the final day of this years Jimmy Fund game. (Maybe if he hadn’t hit the photographer, he would have run the bases again.)
It was the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the “impossible dream” team from 1967. It was the second game of a two game series with the St. Louis Cardinals, their 1967 WS opponents, so a bunch of the old timers were there to celebrate.
So it was not just any ceremonial first pitch, but an especially prominent one.
The beginning of a new hit TV series that will still be on in 500 years! (See “Idiocracy”)
=8-0
Note to injured dude: At least it wasn’t a tomahawk!
Could be worse, it could have been a Randy Johnson pitch.
OUCH! Good point!
Whoa....
I’ve done it twice before an MLB game. I didn’t embarrass myself so no one remembers. I won some online contests to do this. I did get to keep the ball. :)
Ball two!
Nothing could be as lame as when Kerry threw out the first pitch
While the first pitch incident was cringeworthy (if hitting a journalist in the balls could be considered such) the story of this young man is truly inspiring. Diagnosed with a rare cancer at age three...
http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20120804/NEWS/208040330
Not someone to laugh at, but someone to celebrate.
WOW, thanks, I didn’t know anything about this young man! What a survival story, it is so wonderful that he able to enjoy all these things now.
WOW, thanks, I didn’t know anything about this young man! What a survival story, it is so wonderful that he able to enjoy all these things now.
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