OT: Your Baseball Playing Days

[wazoo]

Hey all,
I hope all is well today I played in the last tournament game of my first American Legion baseball season. Well I will tell you, Legion baseball is really a step up from Babe Ruth. It's quite the experience being able to play with some college kids and older guys, while I'm only heading into my Junior year of high school. All I can say was that it was a lot of fun today. The weather was beautiful, and I hit the ball further than I ever have. It was an easy 330 ft, right at the warning track, and some how the kid caught it. My goodness I hadn't been that excited for awhile. Overall it was a great season, and I'm excited to start fall baseball. So, does anyone have any baseball playing stories from back in the day?

[drcy]

I ripped my pants stealing second base when I was eleven.

[CharleyBrown]

I got hit by a pitch in the right elbow playing "senior league" when I was in 6th grade. Fractured my right elbow and growth plate. Coach gave me hell about it, and I quit the team after the game was over. Was in a cast for 6-8 weeks, and never played organized baseball again.

Side note - my English teacher refused to provide me with any assistance when it came to note-taking, and insisted that I write left-handed. I did (along with doing everything else left handed), and became ambidextrous. To this day, I can still write, bat, throw, dribble, etc. with both hands equally.

[kmac32]

Hey Waz,

I was a left handed catcher at Cubs camp and Lee Smith wanted to practice so I caught him. Remember after several warm up pitches, I told him I know you can still bring it as you haven't been retired from MLB that long. He threw me a 90 mile per hour fastball That made my mitt pop. Caught it in the webbing so it didn't hurt. That was a blast. Also remember being the closer for the campers one year and picked Big Lee Smith off of first base. I also lined a single off of Big Lee in my first at bat off of him. After the game he asked me where that one came from as i wasn't known for my batting average. Great Memories and yes, they are all on tape.

Kmac

[prewarsports]

I played at Utah State University in 1997 before tearing my rotator cuff. We played a game in Ogden, Utah and something was wrong with the Ogden Raptors Minor League Field we were supposed to play on so it got moved to a High School Stadium that had not been used for a while and the infield was like concrete (literally). I remember all during pre-game thinking no matter what happened, I was not sliding on that field because I already had a huge open wound on my leg from earlier slides (I was really fast back then and stole a lot). First at bat, they play me to pull as a Right Handed Hitter because their starter was pretty slow, fastball in the low 80's and I tried to go opposite way and it worked, I slashed a line drive over the first basemans head and I am thinking triple all the way, as I am rounding second I pick up my third base coach and just started saying prayers in my head that he keeps his hands up. Sure enough about half way down the line he starts telling me to get down. In the heat of the moment, between curse words in my mind, I dont even think about it and slide safely for a triple. It was so bad the pain didn't hit me at first but I loked down at my leg anyways just to be safe and what was at first a pin sized red dot turned into an apple sized red stain of blood in about 2 seconds. They bandaged me up and I finished the game, but the wound was still open in some form or another for Months afterwards. NO triple is worth that unless its the MLB World Series!

Rhys Yeakley

[z28jd]

I was a pitcher most of the time, but liked playing almost anywhere else(except catcher) better. I'm a lefty and I played every position at least once.

My favorite baseball story is the time my catcher came out before the first pitch, a kid I couldn't stand, and said we should go over the signs. I was throwing high 70's when I was 15, hitting as high as 81 then and didn't throw anything besides fastballs. I sometimes changed to sidearm if some kid was taking good swings, but normally I just threw inside to the first batter, as hard as I could and that was good enough to keep kids from getting comfortable at the plate.

Anyway, after he asks for signs, I basically said shut up and catch. So on the first warmup pitch I decided to bounce one in the dirt and I did...it broke his cup in half. Made my day back then

[mybuddyinc]

I stunk, and mean stunk.

Never made varsity in HS (small <400 prep school), and played only a handful of innings and at bats on JV (even as a junior).

Tried out for Dickinson College team as freshman. 16 tried out, 15 made the team, if you know what I mean. The coach felt bad for me and let me coach 1st base that year. We went 1-18.

[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..

[Craig M]

Hey Wazoo...nice read.

My son plays in Southern California at Cal State University Dominguez Hills.

Your upcoming Junior year is HUGE and you must put up the numbers to get looked at. The summer between my sons Junior and Senior year was spent mostly on the road getting looked at by college coaches. He knew that he wanted to play ball every day in the sunshine so we targeted So Cal.

We drove all night to get to Morgan Hill, CA so he could play in front of fifty college coaches. We got to the hotel at about 3pm so he could get a good nights rest. We checked into the hotel and he turned the tv on to check some MLB scores and discovered the SF Giants had a home game and Timmy was on the bump. So you guessed it, we drove into SF to go see the game (No tickets in hand).

Pulled up as the game was starting and a scalper approached us. He wanted $200 for seats behind home plate 10 rows up. I opened my wallet and only had $80. He said (not enough), so we started walking. Got twentyfive feet away and he came after us and said "take them for $80". Got into the stadium and found our seats and it was a sweet view all night long. Went to the ATM inside and spent $100 on food and beer all night.

Two weeks later, we did another road trip to Fresno so he could play in front of another fifty college coaches. He had a great weekend; went 5 for 8 with tons of action at SS errorless. Sunday afternoon came and coaches wanted to talk to him. Cal State Dominguez Hills told him he wanted him and would pay for a trip down to LA to visit the campus.

Long story short, he signed on November 1st, before his senior year of high school. He had no stress his senior year of baseball because he knew where he was going.

I don't know if you will take it to the next level but if you need some college coaches contact info; I know a handful personally and can put you in touch with a few at the next level.

Good Luck,

Craig M