OT: Your Baseball Playing Days

[novakjr]

This is taking me back.. My age 13 season(1st year in the 13-15 age group) was the last time I can remember hitting under .500.(barely played that year, just bad luck that I wound up on a team loaded with 15 year olds). The last year I played was at 17, for a summer traveling team. I hit well over .600(I wanna say it was in the .640s but really can't remember for sure). I was always a solid contact guy. Never concerned myself with HRs. Hit a few, but my focus was always more on hitting the gaps. I remember taking great pride in the fact that I rarely struck out too. That age 17 season, I wound up with 2 total strikeouts that year, somehow both came in the SAME inning.

Caught and played some 3B. Pitched a little, had good movement, but didn't really have the mental end of pitching figured out. I was a perpetual nibbler, always walked way too many guys. For some reason, I always thought if I was letting guys make contact then I wasn't pitching well. Perhaps it was just the strikeout mentality of the time.. In hindsight, contact isn't such a bad thing...

Wrestling season always overlapped with baseball season, so I was never available for tryouts during HS..

As far as being able to still hit. I can tell you, it's not like riding a bicycle. Took my son to the cages a year or two ago, after not having picked up a bat in close to 14 years, and it wasn't pretty. Could've had something to do with my glasses though too(I'd always worn contacts when I played). I had a good laugh about it though..