OT: Your Baseball Playing Days

[steve B]

I was really bad at baseball - Never got out of the lowest little league, which became T-ball a couple years after I became too old. Couldn't hit much, couldn't catch, and I'm about as slow a runner as you'll find. I just didn't get much in the way of large motor skills until partway through Highschool.

I did end up being a fairly decent catcher for modified pitch softball. Mosyly on durability. I'd played a few positons, some ok, some disastrously. (Infield no, not a good idea. I'm right up there with Chico Escuela.) The one game the regular guy decides to leave his ankle on the plate as someone is scoring. Broken ankle, and pretty much done altogether. Standard backup guy takes a foul ball in a rather unfortunate place two innings later. So I became the catcher. Totally messed people up by eventually abandoning the shin guards and chest protector. (It was modified pitch, now windmill, and no big arch, hardly anyone could get a pitch over about 30, although a couple I think were in the low 50's.) Did just fine for 3 years unil the club stopped having a team.

Being so slow, I'm pretty proud of my two triples. Both very hard hits, one 250+ but on a field with no fence, The second a line drive the outfielder ducked like a pitcher, but on a field with a fence. The rest of the time I'd pretty much look like a swing for the fences guy in BP then went for singles in the game since they'd back up and leave a lot of room.
Those of us with little actual talent have to be sneaky.

Steve B