Freshman Baseball Begins With Bangs

High school baseball has officially begun.  There was a time when I didn’t entertain any thought that this could happen; didn’t even consider the possibility.  Eventually, the possibility of high school baseball became something that seemed like an outside possibility leavened with plenty of doubt.  As more time passed, and especially when it became clear that a freshman team would be available, it seemed increasingly likely, if not inevitable that Michael would play at least a year on the freshman team.  Now?  The future seems wide open.

The boys looked terrific in their new uniforms, facing off against the same team they had scrimmaged two weeks earlier.  In that game, against an assortment of pitchers, our boys collected 11 hits.  This time, the best we could manage was three hits, and Michael had two of those.  The boys played well, but made a couple of costly mistakes early in the game to give their opponent a 3-0 advantage that held up for the rest of the game.  The other guys, having already played half a dozen games this season, were just a little bit sharper, especially at the plate.  I don’t think I’ve seen a game in which our boys hit more flyballs, just missing hittable pitches all over the place.  Given another couple of weeks of practice against live pitching, we should be hitting the ball harder.

For his part, Michael had a great game.  He let off the game with a single and stole second.  He singled again on a hard line drive later in the game, and again stole second.  His singles a fly ball for an out to deep left field.  He said after the game he loves it when he comes to bat, as he did before his second single, and the other team starts yelling “back up!”  He said that the other team was also calling out to play him to pull the ball to left field based on his prior fly ball.  That left a big hole in right-center field.  So where did he put his second hit?  Right-center field.  Defensively, as the starting shortstop, he was on the receiving end of three throws from our catcher to throw out runners attempting to advance to second.  He also caught a hard line drive and made a play on a slow grounder.  

Leading off second after a single and stolen base

This was one of the few games he came out of wishing he could have played a doubleheader.  After spending last summer competing against much older players, he was not intimidated by the freshman pitchers and wanted to keep hitting.  As it was, he was the on-deck hitter when the game ended with runners on base.  He intended to swing for the fences to tie the game if the batter ahead of him had gotten on base safely.  His confidence and performance bodes well for the season.

Michael’s performance was particularly notable because going into the game, he completely lost focus, missing ground balls and overthrowing bases during warm-ups.  His mind was elsewhere.  Specifically, he was thinking about me, because he beaned me in the face during a warm-up drill 20 minutes before the game started.  Because of an unusual configuration of the field, the spectator teachers are closer to the baselines than the dugouts.  One of the team’s standard warm-ups is to take ground balls in front of the dugout.  The spectator area was directly behind the coach receiving throws from the players and separated only by a waist-high fence.  During the warm-up, I was standing at that fence talking with a friend.  In the middle of our conversation, I took a quick glance at the field, dimly noting that I was directly in line with the coach receiving the players’ throws.   A little voice inside my head said, “you know, if there is an overthrow – and you know there always is – you are the next thing the ball is going to hit.”  Through many difficult experiences, I know to ignore that small voice at my peril.  Sure enough, the peril came as it usually does.  If I saw the ball that hit me, I only did so in the millisecond before it made contact with my face at my upper lip and nose.  With a loud exclamation that may not have been completely PG, I went down in a heap and proceeded to bleed like a sheared off fire extinguisher.

I find that at least within my own head, I become incredibly lucid and systematic in moments of extreme distress.  I immediately felt my nose and teeth to make sure nothing was broken (thankfully, all seemed in order; I probably would have passed out if I felt something askew).  Once that critical self-assessment was complete, my brain kicked into high gear with all of the really important things.  First: I made sure to scoot back a little from where I lay prone on the turf to make sure I didn’t bleed all over my brand new hat.  Second:  if I go down, who’s going to score this game?  The important thoughts kept coming: I’m supposed to sing and play guitar in church services tomorrow; how am I going to look?  It’s also going to be terribly embarrassing at the office this week to be hideously disfigured.  All very important stuff.

Before I got up off the ground to wash myself off, I was vaguely aware that Michael was one of the people crowded around me.  I told him to go back and play and that I would be fine.  I was touched that he had come over, and did not yet know that he was the one who had thrown the ball that hit me.  After battling through some light dizziness and nausea, within a few minutes I was on my feet and assuring the coaches that I was fine.  Thanks to some Advil provided by one of the moms, I felt okay, relatively speaking – as well as one can feel when one has taken a baseball to the face.

Someone then let me know that Michael had thrown the ball that hit me (I learned later from him that he had thrown the ball in more of lob than his usual cannon shot, thank God).  That was right about the time our boys were taking infield warm-up on the field, where Michael looked uncharacteristically awful.  When they were done, I called him over to tell him that I was fine, I was not hurt, and that he should go out and simply play the game the way he knows how without worrying about me.  A few moments later, one of the coaches came over to me and asked me if I had spoken to Michael, clearly concerned that Michael was rattled.  I assured him that I was following the same train of thought as he was and that I had been spoken with him.  Michael admitted after the game that he did lose focus during warm-ups because of what happened to me.  He was worried that the coaches would pull him from the game if he could not get his focus back.  That made his single leading off the game all the more sweet.  It settled him down, and he went on to have a terrific game.  For my part, my nose did stop bleeding by dinnertime, which is all you can really ask of a birthday, isn’t it?

Michael was the target of most of their gibes. I assured them all that Michael would be walking home from the game. The coaches also called all the other dads over and let them know that sign-ups for the next game’s dad beaning would be up on the team’s website shortly. The weekly team e-mail also made sure to take note of my little bleeding incident.  I have a feeling this is one of those little events that will remain a part of the program’s lore for the small group of us who were there.