Rounding third and headed for home…

Posted on by David Navarre

Gene told Fred he was going. Fred told Glenn that Gene was going. I set up outside. It was a perfect pitch – just outside and a bit above the waist. I stepped forward and grabbed it. (They tell me my foot was on the plate and the batter would’ve hit me with a swing.) Solid catch. Smooth transfer. Good throw. Gene’s just too darn fast.

On Wednesday, our nine-inning game was the “wood bat game” of the week. That doesn’t affect me as a hitter because I’m always swinging lumber from Phoenix Bats. It does affect a lot of other players, changing those long drives into shallow fly balls. Having a single game on Wednesday and letting it be a wood game should allow everyone a little recovery time. After all, the average age this week is 66.

Gene Lee is probably the fastest runner down here at Ponce de Leon spring training. He always goes on the first pitch and doesn’t care if everyone knows it because… it’s next to impossible to throw him out with arms that were in their prime 30-40 years ago. Once he’s on second, he’s in scoring position and he’s always going to try to score. Here’s video from his first scoring attempt, which Steve Liddle asked me to share. Joe Bauer behind the dish.

I’m curious about the consensus, since my opinion is biased. He did this again, later in the game, while I was catching (after the steal in the first paragraph) and it was … so cool! I know I didn’t get him, since the throw was just up the line. I don’t know if it hit him or if I reached the glove out to stop it. One conspiracy theory has Gene grabbing my arm to prevent me from catching it, but if he did, I didn’t notice! Sadly, I don’t seem to have that video.

Over the fall, I spread the word in Asheville about this week of spring training. It worked and I got Joel Huggins to sign up. While Joel hasn’t been able to break the logjam at first (what team that’s over 50 doesn’t have 7 first basemen?), he’s done well in the outfield. Unfortunately, during the outfield specialty sessions on Tuesday, Joel had a fly ball hit his throwing hand before hitting his glove. So, he’s got a badly bruised (if not broken) ring finger on his throwing hand. In batting practice, he said that every time he made contact, it stung so much, he saw stars. There was a play in right field in which he charged the shallow fly ball and it worked out for us – while the ball dropped, Fred was able to scoot back from second and get the runner from second at home. That gave us a runner on first with 1 out and we escaped the inning with a well-timed double-play. When I later made a mistake, Joel reminded me how I needed to let it slide and that everything would work out.

Adrian Rosati started the game on the mound for Stu Clyburn’s team and despite rarely topping 37 mph, he really frustrated us. You don’t need to throw hard down here. You just need to throw strikes. He walked me and I got the first of my two steals on the day. (Yes, my legs are reminding me that catchers shouldn’t steal, especially mid-week.) The score teetered back and forth a little, settling to 7-6 in the late innings, when there is no run limit.

Doug Milman has been a godsend for us in the field. He and John Gardner have split innings at shortstop and I believe there might only have been one error there. Their fielding and throwing has been awesome. We don’t always end up with the out at first, but that’s Ponce baseball for ya. One time during this game, Doug was out in centerfield and he looked out of position to me. I waved him in the direction I wanted, but I didn’t need to. Doug coaches baseball and he moves like a gazelle. So, where he lines up in the outfield is guided by experience and understanding of the game, aided by his ability to get to most anything.

With Gene’s speed, we knew we were at risk once he reached base. As noted above, he stole second despite our best efforts. So, when the next batter hit the ball, Gene got on his horse and motored around third.

I lined myself up in front of home plate, giving him a path to the plate and I saw that look in his eye. The ball was coming in and I thought we had him… but the ball was just behind him and he was safe. I tagged him after I picked up the ball, then threw to second to try preventing the extra base. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that out. It was such a thrilling play, I enjoyed it despite the outcome. I love this game!

The score finished at 9-6 because we just couldn’t find a run late in the game.

I think I’m 6 for 16, with a few RBIs and two steals. I’ll have to look at the score sheets today to get a better handle. It doesn’t matter much how I hit if I can be consistent behind the plate. This week has been huge in getting comfortable back there and I know I’ll be able to handle catching regularly now. Also, it doesn’t matter because this is so much fun regardless of the outcome.

Tight games and tense moments

Posted on by David Navarre

On Tuesday, we started the day against JR’s (John Russell) team. His teams are always good teams. I was going to list ways in which they’re usually good, but it’s in almost every aspect. Only a few players are good at most things, but each player he has can boast of one above average skill. That’s true of most of the players down here. One might wonder how someone who’s around 80 can compete with players 20-30 years younger. If you hit the ball hard or throw strikes or can play catcher, you don’t have to move fast or have another skill.

Every year at our spring training, we have a day on which we do “specialties” and the professional coaches do some skill training for the players. Most years, we haven’t had a catching session because the turnout would be pretty low. This year, they had one before the morning game, run by Stan Clyburn. Since I know I’m going to be catching a lot and probably not pitching at all, I had to miss Rick Knapp’s pitching session. One of the best aspects of coming to Ponce Spring Training is that these pro coaches add so much knowledge to the team – they give great instruction and they learn our quirks over the years. It’s what they do when they’re with their minor and major league clubs, so it should be no surprise. I’ve never heard of that kind of skill work when teams go to a tournament – you just play.

In our games, we always have run limits in all the innings except the last one. This avoids destroying the arms of the pitchers. When you have at least 58 innings you need to cover with pitchers and you start the week with only 4 pitchers, having those innings end mercifully is quite important. Each of our four pitchers has to pitch every day in order to cover 14 innings.

The games on Tuesday bounced back and forth. Holding a team scoreless for an inning is probably a bigger deal here than anywhere else. 3-run innings are not rare, but scoreless ones are. The game against JR got rough in Fred Jaffke’s second inning on the mound. His control started to deteriorate and I should have gone out on the mound to give him a chance to reset. Pitching can be a finicky thing and Fred will do fine in his next outing.

Sonny Hill kept racking up the RBIs. The hitters in front of him have done a good job of getting on base and it’s paid off. Not everyone runs fast or throws strikes, but they have a talent. Sonny’s is driving runs in.

We managed to squeeze out the morning win with some shutdown innings from Glenn Strachan. It’s been a delight catching for Glenn as his location is very good and the velocity exceeds the rest of the pitching staff. Sometimes, we get the pitch we watn, where we want it and they still hit it, but more often than not, we’re getting weak contact or swings and misses. Those misses are increasing as the week goes on.

Jerry Spitz started the second game and we weren’t great in the field behind him. The estimates of the number of outs we gave them with errors in the first innings were around 7-8 outs. That makes it hard to win. Jerry did get into an argument with the umpire when an opposing player stepped into the plate to avoid a curveball that hit him… over the plate. Jerry turned in 3 innings with the lead passing back and forth between the teams, with one or the other being one run up.

A late add to our team was Rick Kramer. He’s a little speedster and used to be a “vacuum cleaner” in the outfield. There might be a step lost that prevents him from getting to all the balls he used to, but he does well. His bat speed is exceptional and he’s been scooting around the bases for us, scoring critical runs. When the second game went into extra innings and Rick started the inning on second base, I knew we had that run.

In the extra innings, Glenn felt that his hand was doing well enough (recovering from a line drive off it last week) that he took his turn at bat. Mitch Orcutt was pitching the late innings and kept right on going in extra innings. Mitch sometimes comes inside and, sure enough, he hit Glenn on the first pitch. I went up next and got hit on the hand on the second or third pitch. It’s the hazard of pitching inside and, for me, the hazard of crowding the plate. As a result, we took the lead.

On a bloop that landed at the edge of the grass and bounced to Bill Murray, the opposing team’s runner on 2nd tried to score. Bill made a nice throw, which I caught a few feet up the line to beat the runner by a large margin. Those extra innings are a jumble in my head of what happened when and how.

With the heart of their lineup coming up in the bottom of the 9th, Glenn shut them down and I caught strike three to end the game. Hard-fought and nicely won.

So you want to be a catcher?

Posted on by David Navarre

“All right, so who are my catchers? Joe, I know I’ve got you.”

Silence. No one raises their hand, despite two others having been assigned to the team with the thought that they are catchers.

“I’d like to catch a little.”

So, at the end of the first day, I’ve caught nearly as many innings in one game as I caught last year. I think I caught nine innings last year – never more than three in a day. Today, I caught 8 innings. The last four in both games. It was awesome.

So, I’m down at Ponce de Leon Spring Training, playing at historic Terry Park Sports Complex down here in Fort Myers. At the end of January every year, the Ponce de Leon league from the Washington DC area hosts a balanced tournament and training week. Six professional coaches to coach the 6 teams (including Darrin Garner, who is taking a week away from pre-training with the Arizona Diamondbacks to coach my team). Steve Liddle (former bench coach with the Twins and Tigers) runs the camp for us. They divide all the players into relatively equal teams (with provisions for who wants to play together) and we play 8 games over 5 days (2 Monday, Tuesday and Thursday). There are trainers in the clubhouse to handle preventative care and injuries. Everyone gets a locker and can have the clubbie do their laundry. It’s a far different experience from Roy Hobbs or other tournaments, and also far different from fantasy camps. It’s all about playing baseball – learning a little and playing even games – rather than focusing on retired ballplayers or only on winning.

I thought I was coming in here to be a utility player – catch a few, pitch a few and play everywhere in the field. When it was revealed that two of the guys that the league thinks are catchers only did so because their teams needed it, I was both scared and excited. I’d been doing a hundred or more weighted while walking my dog every morning and trying to find a moment to do additional reps (without weight) all day to get over 200 squats. That preparation has paid off.

I picked up a Catcher’s Notebook from Always Grind to use and evaluate whether I can have my youth catchers use them when I coach. So, once I settled with Joe Bauer that we’d split the innings, I went to each of our 4 pitchers and took notes on their pitching repertoire and preferences. I had thought I’d try something like this when I was going to catch in a tournament for a team last fall (canceled by the hurricane down here) but having the structure of the notebook is much better. I’m still a newby here and wouldn’t have guessed what to be thinking. After a day, I’m pretty sure that it will also be a good thing for 12-year-olds to do. They may not have a grasp of all the nuances, but it gets them thinking critically about how the game went, how they performed well and what they need to work on.

The first game of the day was a little brutal. We ended up giving up 3 runs in four different innings (3 run limit in all but the final inning) but I got to work with three of our four pitchers. Glenn Strachan is a tournament pitcher that was allocated to our roster to give us an ace. He locates his pitches extremely well and gets the hitters to hit it where we want it. Being that we’re all old men, that sometimes still doesn’t result in an out. Bill Murray (no, not that one!) came in and pitched a couple of innings and some of his pitches are honestly unhittable. That should work out well this week as long as he’s around the strike zone. Fellow Michigan State alum and Washington Nationals grounds crew member, Fred Jaffke, finished the game out. With a final score in the morning game of 12-4, we were hanging our heads a little.

In the second game, Jerry Spitz started the game with Joe behind the plate. After 3 innings, Glenn and I cam in as a battery. We all managed to keep the game close and when we held them scoreless in the top of the 7th (we’re playing 7 inning games), we eked out a 1-run victory to set us even at 1-1. There was far more timely hitting in this game and, in particular, Sonny Hill banged a hard line drive up the middle that brought in 3 runs while the centerfielder chased it down

I had a reasonably good day at the plate, going 1 for 2 in the first game with one of the 4 RBIs and 1 for 3 in the second game with one RBI. Behind the dish, my blocking was very good and my receiving was good enough. I did have two runners steal – one when I bobbled the pitch and another when my throw was a little off-line. The hard throws in the warmup when “coming down” should help deter much thievery. I did field a few balls near home that resulted in outs and ran down a runner who tried to steal home on a walk. I’m very happy with how I played behind the dish.

We feel like we escaped by getting a split on Monday, and will come back hard on Tuesday to make our drive for the championship.

Spring Training for Old Men

Posted on by David Navarre

With the dawning of the new year, baseball season will soon be upon us. While major league pitchers and catchers don’t report for 30 days, the old men who play baseball will report in a mere 14 days. Yes, that’s right, spring training for Ponce de Leon is just two weeks away.

I’m very excited because it means I get to play baseball every day for a week, but I’d bet you’re thinking, “that’s got to be expensive!” After all, the Twins fantasy camp is $4,395 (7-14 January) and the Red Sox fantasy camp is $5,199 (15-22 January). Both of those are held in Fort Myers, but our spring training is a fraction of the cost. First-timers like me pay just $995, while it’s just another $150 for returning players – $1,145. Since I’m mainly interested in playing baseball, not necessarily spending time with former Red Sox or Twins players or attending team-planned social events, I think this is a better fit. There are number of things I’ve done to prepare for this….

An even better bat

In preparation, I contacted my friends at Phoenix Bats to get a couple of new bats for the trip. Just over a year ago, I had them take the standard F110 bat that I’d used in 2015 (and written about…) and create a slightly different design. As I noted when I wrote about that bat, I’d had some issues when taking extended batting practice. My hands have become seriously dry over the past few years (despite everything I try!) and this resulted in some blood blisters and painful pinching of my lower palm.

So, in the fall of 2015, I ordered a few ‘extra bats’ that they had on clearance, to try out different designs. One just flared down at the handle rather than having a knob. While the particular bat wasn’t quite what I wanted, I loved that handle. So, Phoenix Bats created a new design for me (PH2M 34) which has that flare rather than a knob. It’s also a half-inch longer and a half-ounce heavier than my F110 (34 instead of 33.5 inches, both with -2.5 drop weight). As much as the original F110 helped, my custom designed bat seemed to help even more. A few more hits and a little better distance.

At our spring training, Wednesday is “Wood Bat Day”, when everyone is going to use wood bats. Well, for me, every day will be wood bat day because I really do hit better with a wood bat. The folks at Phoenix Bats agree with me that wood bats are better.

Conditioning

In preparation for spring training, I was reminded that I need to do some running and throwing. Nothing would be worse than pulling a muscle or being in agony for the entire week by not preparing myself.

Fortunately, we got a new puppy this summer, and Hudson loves to run. Hudson is, like his predecessor, Henry, is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Henry was not much of a runner. As he got older, Henry would never run more than about 20 yards and I could run faster than he could. Hudson runs like a cheetah, his long body fully extending on every stride. Running a quarter mile at full speed doesn’t put him out of breath, though I can tell he’s being kind to me and not running quite full speed. Nonetheless, it’s been pretty good preparation. My endurance has gone way up and I’m hoping it’s helped with my top speed. This fall, my weight had ballooned to about 223 pounds and I was thrown out stealing by ten steps once. I’m back down to my playing weight of 212 pounds and hoping I can get under 210 before we get to Florida.

I do need to get out the ball to start throwing, though, and hope to get two trips to the batting cage (at The Strike Zone) before we head down. I’ve had some training sessions with a local coach, but not sure I’ll be able to coordinate any time with him.

Learning the schedule

Ponce de Leon has players reporting on Sunday, with an opening dinner to get our team assignments and learn the details of the week. I’ve both been told that it’s required (by the staff) and that some players just drop in for their team assignments. I’m all in for getting to know folks right away – and get a chance to know the coaches. From what I understand, the coaches have a variety of experiences playing and coaching at various levels of the professional system. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to research and write about some of them in this process. Fred Jaffke tells me they have many interesting stories, usually passed on during the late afternoon post-game relaxation (out in left field with one of the coolers).

Monday morning, I’ll check in around 8am and have the first chance to sit at my very own locker! Terry Park was the spring training home at various times to the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, and Minnesota Twins (though Twins minor leaguers only). The last major league use was by the Royals in 1987, with the one-year visit by Twins minor leaguers in 1990 being the last professional use. I was not even a high-school baseball player, so having a locker that was fit for a pro (even if it was almost 30 years ago) could be a real step up. I’ll surely post a photo.

Mornings will start with stretching, which is a must for old men. I got on that bandwagon early. I had a stretching routine even back when I was in middle school. With the number of daily aches and pains one has after they turn 40, everyone should approach it with enthusiasm. To keep my knees and ankles in order, I’ve been using braces for decades. There aren’t any specific problems with those joints, but I know my recovery time increases significantly if I don’t wear them.

We’re to get some fielding and batting practice with the coaches, so I think this ought to make a big difference in my abilities. Back when I was a kid, I had already been shunted to the end of the bench in the 8th grade. I don’t know if Mr. Paul, our coach, was good at instruction, but I don’t remember getting a lot of attention. I know that my other coaches before that were mostly just someone’s Dad. I don’t remember any of them knowing much about the game. So, I’ve bought a lot of books and watched a lot of videos over the years. I finally hired a hitting coach last year, and the difference in my bat speed was incredible. I expect getting some other perspectives can only help.

We’re playing two six-inning games a day, so there should be plenty of plate appearances and plenty of opportunities in the field.

When we finish around 4:30pm, I expect we’ll all be more than ready to pop open a few cold ones in the post-game bull session.

Am I ready?

At 51, I think I’ll still be on the younger side of the team, but it might just put me in the middle. Is my conditioning going to be enough? I sure hope so. The two new bats should arrive before we head south and I’ll pick up a few more backup uniform pieces, so that equipment shouldn’t be a problem. Having gotten over facing live pitching again a few years ago, I think I’m mentally ready. While Terry Park does have a grandstand, I don’t know if there will be anyone in the stands, so don’t expect any ‘pressure’ from playing in front of a crowd.

Any way I look at it, though, it’s exciting. 9 games on good fields, with real coaching, and all the trappings of being at spring training. Who wouldn’t love it?

It’s not the bat, or is it?

Posted on by David Navarre

Anyone who ever watched me play softball would have to wonder how I managed to get two home runs in my Humble Flies career. They’d know it wasn’t due to some hidden power that burst occasionally. I can’t remember either of them, but assume they must have involved right fielders falling down or breaking a leg as my ball skipped past them. I could occasionally hit the ball to the right-center gap or along the right field line in a such a way that I could make a double or triple out of good placement, but I never had any power,

As one of the youngest guys playing Ponce de Leon baseball, I really want to take advantage of my speed while I have it. My softball experience tells me that 20 years of playing will erode my speed in comparison to my peers. So, having occasionally hit the ball hard using my off-the-shelf Louisville Slugger, I thought I might try a different bat for better power.

Since that visit to Cooperstown didn’t finish with me carrying new lumber, I had to look elsewhere for a better bat. Phoenix Bats has a broad variety of bat designs to meet every preference. There are 20 distinct designs and you can make many customizations to those. I’ve been a contact hitter most of my life, but I always wanted to be a gap hitter. Wouldn’t you know it, Phoenix makes a bat for just those kind of hitters. The F110 is billed as the Contact-to-Gap hitter’s bat.

The F110 comes in a variety of lengths and typically has a -2.5 drop weight, which means 2.5 ounces less than the length in inches. My first bat was -3 drop weight, giving me a 31-ounce bat that was 34 inches long. Since my softball playing days were marked by punches to right field and my stance always had me deep in the box, I wanted to stick with a 34 inch bat. Of course, when I played softball, 34 inch bats could weight just about anything you wanted. I typically used a 28 ounce bat, to keep some bat speed while also having some pop. As noted above, my experience was that there was no pop at all. So, I kept the length, added weight and played last year with a 31-ounce, 34-inch bat. Feeling that my timing was suited to 31 ounces, I decided that I’d keep the weight and adjust the length. So, my F110 is 31 ounces and 33.5 inches. You can vary the length and the drop weight on your bat.

Another thing that distinguished the F110 from other bat is the handle diameter. Measuring 31/32nds of an inch, it’s more suited to bigger hands and more capable against the inside pitch. Hopefully, the durability cited holds true, since I’d like to use this bat for a long time. With that thicker handle, one expects it will be less prone to breakage. I like the feel of the thicker handle, but am wondering about the knob….

Of late, in reading about hitting, I probably understood for the first time that my grip was simply wrong. I never meant to, but somewhere along the way, I started gripping my bat with something akin to a death grip. That is, of course, the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do. As Crash Davis tells Nuke Laloosh about the baseball when pitching, you should handle it like an egg. Tensing your arm and hand muscles to squeeze the bat is counter-productive. Holding the bat gently is key. Adam LaRoche is so good at this – and embraces the trend of ‘no-knob’ bats – that his bat can come right out of his hands on the follow through. My first time in the batting cage this year, I developed a blister on hand about a quarter of the way up the palm. I’m having some issues with excessive dryness and chapping on my left hand and little blood blisters formed right along the line of chapped skin. I had felt my skin ‘bunching’ with each batting practice swing and the heel pressed against the knob. It healed up after a few days, though. The F110 has a medium flared knob, while LaRoche’s bats have none.

So, I wonder about the knob.

The barrel of the F110 is 2.5 inches. My softball bats probably were never close to that broad. When you get into the power hitting bats from Phoenix Bats, you can select ones that are even broader, but 2.5 is a pretty good starting size. Those power hitter’s bats have to be even heavier than mine. Any increase is size, though it come with an attendant increase in weight, is also going to give you a bigger sweet spot. The bigger the sweet spot, the more forgiving your contact can be, and the more power you can impart with perfect contact.

They also offer your choice of three types of wood: Rock Maple, Yellow Birch and Northern White Ash. Maple is the strongest, with Ash having the most flexibility. Maple will give you the most pop and the best protection inside. Ash has a bigger sweet spot and is more forgiving off the end of the bat. Birch is somewhere in the middle, giving better action on mishits all over, but not as much pop anywhere. I chose Maple, since I was tortured inside last year and want some pop.

Now, you have to wondering, how did all this play out in the game?

In my first at-bat, the pitcher had been wild, with pitches sailing over heads and going wide. So, I stood like a stone wall and watched the first pitch. Best pitch he’d thrown in a long time. He threw the next over my head, then followed with one I thought missed the inside corner. So, with two strikes, I flailed wildly at strike three, a little high near the top of the strike zone. I could have been holding a broomstick for all the difference it made.

Of note, Andrew Cline has been showing his prowess with the glove. In the fall, he played in the outfield with me a lot. He is far faster than I am, so his Willie Mays act won accolades and made everyone look forward to the spring. Fred chose Andrew to start in center for the first two games. He’s been batting atop the lineup, but not seeing pitches he can hit. With our team, you can pretty much play any position after the first inning. People flow in and out, with no one sitting the bench two consecutive innings.

So, he took third one inning and a line drive destined for left field shot in between him and the line about knee height. He dove to snag it and threw the shocked runner from second out – while Andrew was nearly on his back. That would have been our ‘web gem’, except he took shortstop later in the game.

The bases were loaded and our lead had dwindled to two runs. The ball was popped into shallow left field. It was one of those perfect Texas Leaguers – moreso because in Ponce, there are nearly no quick fielders – but Andrew didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to have a play on the ball. Racing back, he caught the ball over his shoulder – more Willie Mays than he’d ever needed in the fall – recording the third out and saving two runs.

The rookie has more than proven his worth.

Last year, as I noted, I was nervous at bat for half the season. Chris Valtin, who helped me get onto the team, said to me, “It’s all in the mental approach. Get your head in the right place and everything else flows from there.” Since that advice was mirrored in The Louisville Slugger® Complete Book of Hitting Faults and Fixes : How to Detect and Correct the 50 Most Common Mistakes at the Plate, you know it’s true. I started going to the plate thinking I was going to get a hit. They started coming. In the fall, my confidence was far higher and the pitching was spot-on – faster, but more accurate. So, I regularly collected a pair of hits each week.

Nonetheless, I wanted a ‘professional’ bat. Is it better for me because of the facets laid out above about handle size, weight, length, sweet spot and knob? Or is it better because I think it’s better? Or does it make no difference at all?

Men were on first and second when I came up. Having been burned by watching when I love being an aggressive hitter, I went up to swing. When that pitch came off the sweet spot on my F110 (visible on the cherry finish I had them put on the barrel), I didn’t feel it in the slightest. When you hit the ball just right, it’s like… nothing. The ball sailed into the GAP between the left fielder and center fielder. I rounded first crisply, having seen the left fielder’s back and downstretched glove fail to stop the ball. I cruised into second, having hit my first ball to the warning track since about 1997 (once, in softball batting practice).

Was it the bat? Was it the mental approach? Was it the grip? Was it just one of those lucky things?

Could have been anything, but I’m going to keep using the bat, stick that approach and remind myself to use the grip, the stance, and everything. I’m just glad to help the team and, hopefully, everything will work out.

My totals for the day: 1 for 2, with a HBP and one RBI.

Final score: 11-9 victory, after a wide early lead

Season stats: .600 (3/5) batting average, .800 SLG, 1.467 OPS, 1 HBP, 1 2B, 1 SB, 1 R, 1 RBI

Opening day jitters

Posted on by David Navarre

I was nervous. After all, it was opening day. I’d had rookie jitters through half of my first season, so I expected to be a little nervous before this game. It was probably fortunate that I didn’t start, so I could get into the rhythm of the game and put those jitters aside. When I strode to the plate with two outs and two men on, I was carrying my brand-new Phoenix bat. Standing in the box, I made a conscious decision to simply watch the first pitch. There were no jitters. I’d seen 85 mile-an-hour fastballs over the winter in the batting cage near my house. The pitcher’s grey hairs and steady pace gave me confidence. On his second pitch, my timing was all 85 mph and I ended up in my follow through before it crossed the plate, even with an attempt to slow my swing. 0 and 2 isn’t always the easiest count to hit in. I steeled myself and watching the release of the ball with great anticipation….

When I strode to the plate for the first time in Ponce de Leon baseball last year, I’d had 34 years between singles. Way back in 8th grade, I’d been inserted late in a game we were losing badly, and beat out a groundball, then, foolishly, tried to advance on the overthrow. I wasn’t that fast then, so I was out and felt like an idiot. 25 years of men’s league softball and countless seasons of coed beer league ball later, I punched a ball off the glove of a first baseman who couldn’t find the handle to it for the putout. Standing on first base, playing on a high school baseball field for the first time, I was ecstatic.

Through half of the season, though, when standing at the plate, I would literally be shaking in my boots. I worried that if I didn’t play well, I’d lose my spot on the team. My wife kept reassuring me that I was better than guys who seemed to average 15 years older than me. I knew I was faster, so every time that I got on first base, I was looking to steal second. That worked, helping my confidence. I even stole third once. Heck, I stole second in a playoff game, diving head first and arm’s length into right field to avoid the tag (the throw beat me, but the stretch was simply too far for him.) By those playoff games, I was no longer shaking at bat, but still worried about earning my keep.

In the fall, our team doesn’t play in the league, but instead uses our field to play more relaxed pick-up games with invitations extending to sons, friends of sons, and men not yet old enough for our league. So, the pitching is a bit faster, though without much movement (at the request of the team manager, since it’s supposed to be live batting practice.) While last year’s regular season was a struggle for me at bat, relying on walks to get on base early in the season before starting to hit a bit, the fall was a break out. 2 or 3 hits every game and time to shine in the outfield. It also allowed me to bring Andrew Cline up from the Humble Flies as a rookie to follow me onto the team.

In the off-season, I bought myself a new bat. My original Louisville Slugger was nice, but I wanted something more. When we went to Cooperstown in August (on our way to Saratoga for horse racing), I went into a few stores selling bats. All had strict prohibitions on swinging the bat. So, I picked up bats, considered how they felt and passed. If I couldn’t swing it, I didn’t want to buy it.

In the winter months, the anticipation was too much. One day, I saw an ad for Phoenix Bats, and decided to follow it to see what they had. I always thought that the only variables in bats were the length and the weight. I was quite wrong. I’ll go into detail on this in a future post, but suffice it to say that I was quite pleased with the variety of offerings. I ordered my bat and it arrived well in advance of Opening Day.

Our team prefers to use wood bats, but not every team wants to, and the league doesn’t force anyone to. Since our opening day opponents chose not to limit themselves to wood bats, we were free to use whatever we wanted. Nonetheless, I’ve found I hit better with wood, so I took my brand new Phoenix Bat to the plate.

That pitch came in and my internal clock was not quite running at 85 miles an hour, but it was running fast, so I swung a little early hitting it on the end of the bat and driving it down the left field line. There were runners on, so rounding first base, I knew I was headed back. I jumped on the base and proudly shouted,  “Wood bat!”

After another hit, I was dancing off second, taking a big lead in expectation of scoring on any hit. As I headed to third on a shallow hit in the outfield, Bill waved me home. I didn’t think it was drawing a throw, but I was hustling anyway. I was surprised when the catcher stepped on the plate, but I crossed a few steps before the ball arrived. So, with a few hits strung together with two outs, we tallied three runs.

My totals for the day: 2 for 3, with a stolen base and a run.

Final score: 11-2 victory

Season stats: .667 batting average, 1.333 OPS, 1 SB, 1 R