OT: Your Baseball Playing Days

[kmac32]

Originally Posted by David W

Never played Pekin, but had friends that went there.

They were the Chinks when I was in HS, but I think in the mid 80's became the dragons or something.

Yeah they did. I graduated in 78 and believe they changed it in the early 80's. Odd community to grow up in.

[dealme]

I played DIII college ball at a small school in Indiana, and while I wasn't terribly successful, I had a great time. It was great being able to get away from schoolwork for a couple of hours a day and focus on the game. Plus, I made some great friends that I am still close with today. One of those friends happened to be the assistant coach, who was also a fellow Red Sox fan. Long story short, we attended game four of the 2004 World Series together, something that I will cherish for years to come.

[t213]

When I was 15 our team stunk. The coach said if anyone hit a homerun he'd buy the team pizza. I hit a 3-run homer in the first inning over the 300 foot sign in left field. We lost 25-5, but after the game we all piled in his Econoline van and he bought us pizza.

In the same year I was a pitcher. I threw hard, but had control issues. The same coach was warming me up in the bullpen before a game and I hit his foot squarely with a fastball - broke his big toe. He jumped up and down yelling an admirable string of curses and then said "I think you're all warmed up."

Andy

[mattsey9]

When I was a student at Indiana University in the early 1990's, the Kansas City Royals announced that they were holding an open tryout one morning near Bloomington. My roommate and I got up early and headed out to seek our fortunes. He was a graduate student who had gone to Ole Miss for his undergrad, and I'd gone down there one weekend the semester before for a football game. He'd been a student manager for the baseball team there so he got us hooked up with a couple of Ole Miss baseball shirts. I wore it to the tryout that day.

When we got there, we signed up with the scouts. This was when the Royals were one of the top organizations in baseball. They'd won the Series in '85, and Brett & Saberhagen were still around. We got loose, and the scouts had us break off into positions. My buddy was a catcher, so he went off to the bullpen to work with the pitchers. I was a first baseman, and went off to take fielding while others were hitting.

Quite simply, I had the day of my life. I picked every low throw out of the dirt cleanly, snagged a couple of vicious line drives and even managed to pull a fastball over the right field wall. It was all I could do not to jump out of my skin and act like I'd been there before.

There were three first basemen there that day. There was one kid straight out of high school, and he was helpless out there. I was a good local player having a great day, and then there was the third guy. He came to the plate, pulled out a wood bat and drove five straight pitches over the fence. He pulled a business card, handed it to the chief scout, and left. Turned out he was fresh from playing in the College World Series. That left me and the other guy to finish out the day playing first base. He got worse, and if anything I got better.

So what was the great moment? Near the end of the day, one of the scouts complimented me on my bat speed and asked me what my average had been that season at Ole Miss. That was my great moment. A major league scout thought I was good enough to have been playing baseball at a powerhouse SEC school.

Now the funniest thing I was ever part of on the diamond happened a few years later. I was playing on a MABL team in Indianapolis that was in the middle of the pack. Something clicked mid-season, and we couldn't stop winning. We ended up playing in a tournament called the Hoosier State Games. Kind of a mini Olympics for Hoosiers. We were one of four teams to enter, and won the semi-final easily. Easily because we had ringers. Our shortstop's sister was dating a few of the guys on the Indianapolis Indians, and a couple of them wanted in. One of those guys knew a lefty pitcher who had just been named all Big-10 at Illinois, and he came to pitch the final for us. This guy was confident as hell. We knew that the other team had a few former pros as well, but he figured he couldn't be beat.

They led off in the top of the first, and our ringer struck out the first two guys he faced. Then came the third guy. He was about forty years old, and we heard he'd had a cup of coffee with the Brewers several years prior. He walked to the plate looking broken down and arthritic. Our guy sneered as he blazed a fastball past him for strike one. I had a great view from first base as the batter turned the next pitch around for a home run that went well over 400 feet to left center. As he hobbled around the bases, you could visibly see our pitcher's ego completely deflate. He lost the strike zone completely and didn't make it past the third inning. He kept muttering to himself on the bench, "That guy's older than my dad..." Hilarious. Taught me just exactly how good MLB guys are when someone who barely made the Show tore up a really good amateur team.

[tbob]

I played catcher from Little League through high school, good hitter for average but little power. Good defensively but not the fleetest afoot.
American Legion used to be wonderful. When I coached and we won a State Championship in 1989 it was one of the greatest days of my life. Unfortunately kids started finding other things to do during the summer from video games to working to just hanging out and no longer wanted to put in the time necessary for all the practices and games and started playing Senior Babe Ruth instead which had few practices and fewer games. But most importantly, football became a 12 month sport down South with spring football and summer camps and basketball became a year round sport also with summer camps, AAU basketball, etc. Sadly the 3 sport athletes are only a memory as kids want to specialize in one sport.

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by tbob

Sadly the 3 sport athletes are only a memory as kids want to specialize in one sport.

Totally agree, it is sad. I was a 3 sport athlete most of my life. It could get tiring, but each sport seemed to compliment the next. This is probably oversimplified, but how I remember it.. baseball developed the hand eye coordination, arm strength and good hands, basketball helped with body control, lateral quickness and balance, and also hands, football really made you explosive in bursts (I also developed whatever leaping ability I ever had doing football drills) and stronger. Football also seemed by far the most important from a team and character building standpoint. Bums me out to think most kids today miss out on that variety now. Just think of guys like Bo Jackson, Brian Jordon, Danny Ainge, Jackie Jensen, Dave Winfield, and of course Jackie Robinson, who all achieved so much as multi sport stars.

[David R]

I spent a few seasons in the Midwest League for the Braves - threw a 91 mph fastball and not much else but it was good enough to make the All Star Team one year.