by Kirk on March 31, 2012
As I practiced and practiced and practiced some more I felt as though my pitching had improved and I was ready to pitch a game. To move from center-field, the position I normally held, to pitcher was not going to be an easy sell. I was known for my speed and intensity, not my arm and accuracy throwing.
Each game I hounded the coach to let me try pitching. I had played at least every position but pitcher and I felt that my practice had made me worthy of getting the chance to try it. I recall the coach denying me on several occasions stating he needed me in the outfield, but I didn’t give up asking. One day when the team had an impressive lead over our opponents and we were near a shut out, the coach put me in to pitch.
I quickly and proudly took the pitcher’s mound. I have no recollection of anything positive happening in this experience. The first batter was a walk and so was the next. My confidence shrank to the size of a speck of dust and was lost to the dirt of the field. Each batter that proceeded the first was walked, our lead shrinking with each at bat. I looked at the coach with a plea of desperation to be pulled, saved from my misery and embarrassment and left to cower in the corner of the dugout. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. I was stranded on the mound and I had to keep throwing the ball.
My memory recalls the other team laughing at first and then becoming somber perhaps feeling embarrassed for me. I had no outs and it was more than apparent that I could not pitch. The coach stood there expressionless.
There was no relief just isolation and the torture of having to go on pitching. In reality I probably walked in two runs or something. This whole event most likely lasted for ten minutes, but the emotional trauma was extensive and never ending.
At some point in the game both teams had suffered enough at my attempt to pitch and I was pulled. I think we even went on to win the game.I didn’t take this experience as a lesson to get better at pitching. Instead, I took it as a lesson in not trying something I don’t seem to have a natural ability at and that once I fail at something I will continue to fail so it is pointless to try it again.
I think I took it that the coach was teaching me a lesson to never pester him again about pitching and after that day, I never did.
In all honesty I only have a few experiences or memories like this in sports but I do have a tremendous amount of amazingly beautiful ones. For some reason though in my wiring the negatives overwhelm the positives, beat them up, and steal their baseball card bubble gum.
For all you kids playing baseball this spring, have fun, learn something about the game/yourself, and don’t be afraid to ask questions or fail. It’s a game and you can’t win em all so try to have as much fun as possible losing and/or winning.
Batter up!
by Kirk on March 30, 2012
This past weekend my wife and I watched the movie Moneyball. I really enjoyed the movie. The next day we went to visit my parents. My mother was watching the Cleveland Indians on television. Later, my eight year old nephew and I were outside hitting a wiffle ball. He kept dropping his shoulder and hitting pop-ups.
I was telling him he should practice hitting a stationary ball. Saying this out loud, the smell of spring in the air, baseball on television and watching Moneyball the night before brought back memories of my youth and my love of the game.
I played little league baseball for nearly every summer from kindergarten till I entered high school. In the beginning of each new season the excitement for sign-ups was nearly unbearable but by the middle of the season I would moan and complain of being tired of playing. Each year it was the same thing.
Playing wiffle ball with my nephew made me reminisce of some methods I used to improve my game.
To work on my swing my father did two things for me, he drilled a hole through a large, dense, rubber ball and hung it from a tree branch and he gave me a baseball bat fit for an adult. I could barely lift that big wooden bat it felt like trying to hold up Thor’s hammer while treading water. My father told me that by practicing swinging it I would get stronger and my swing would improve and that I would grow into the bat. Whatever, that meant. I would train like Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV hitting that ball as hard as I could.
Time is gracious for children. They have time to learn things and to do it repetitively whenever they feel like it, sometimes for no reason other than because they have the time. I was no different. I went outside and I swung at the hard rubber ball whenever I had nothing else to do or anyone else to play with.
When I told him I wanted to be a pitcher he placed a piece of plywood against the back of the house and spray painted the strike zone in the middle of it. From there I could practice pitching on my own.
I felt like Roy Hobbs, or I fancied myself as the natural. The smartest smoking moustache I knew may not have been physically capable of playing catch or tossing me some pitches to work on my swing, but he was supportive and resourceful.
I can remember throwing that ball at the back of the house after dinner till it was too dark to see anymore. My goal was to be pitcher and if I was going to do it I had to get better.
by Kirk on December 26, 2011
Shortly after Ike fell ill and died Mike followed the leader over the rainbow bridge. Saddened by our brief relationship with our chameleons we wanted to bury them but our father, the smartest smoking moustache I knew, told us the ground would be frozen since it was winter in Ohio.
The smartest smoking moustache I knew needed to rid our home of our dried Christmas tree and said he had an idea. He took our chameleons and the Christmas tree and lead us down to the river and out onto the canoe landing.
He had us place the box holding the chameleon corpses on top of the Christmas tree floating in the water. We said our goodbyes and after lighting his Winston cigarette, the smartest smoking moustache I knew lit the tree on fire and pushed it out into the current.
We watched from the landing as we gave Mike & Ike a well deserved Viking Funeral.
The End.
by Kirk on December 25, 2011
After a few weeks of feeding them meal-worms and watching them do just about nothing, the smartest smoking mustache I knew (a.k.a. dad, but as a child all I could associate with him were his moustache, glasses and his brand of cigarettes – Winstons so from here on out he will be referred to as the smartest smoking moustache I knew) told us that we could tie a shoe lace around their necks and walk them like dogs. Most likely he got this idea from something he had seen during Vietnam and way before there was anything called PETA.
Keith and I tried this with little success. If Mike or Ike tried to run they just hung themselves. There was no training taking place for these little creatures. I remember their little hearts beating rapidly from fear whenever we had them out of their tank. In hindsight it is pretty clear as to why this response occurred.
Here is a little info on this type of chameleon…
A Carolina anole will turn brown when cold or distressed. Keith’s was almost always brown and it was cold in our house for it was winter and our room was especially cold in the winter time. Having a shoe lace tied around one’s neck by an eight year old who is trying to train you to walk on command could cause a bit of stress in one’s life as well. The trouble is there were too many possibilities as to what caused Ike to pass away, but he did and no autopsy was ever performed.
