Tag Archives: softball

October 5, 2013 · 23:22

Switch Hitting and Life as a Lefty forced to the Right

1929_55558957058_1558_n

“He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.” Yogi Berra

Back in 1966 my late father made one of the few mistakes that he made in raising me. He turned me around in the batter’s box and turned me into a right handed hitter.

For years I wondered about this because my first grade teacher Mrs Brandenburg took the pencil out of my left hand and put it in my right hand. A few short years later my 4th grade teacher Mrs Gates whacked my hand with a ruler because of my poor penmanship. That didn’t help my penmanship and truthfully if forced to take notes on paper I  cannot read half of what I wrote.

During my first tour in Germany in the 1980s I started using my left hand to eat, and occasionally would just for shits and giggles write left handed. The sad thing is that I now eat left and that my writing when done with my left hand is nearly as legible as when I write with my right hand. But I digress…

Now ever since dad switched me at the plate I have not been a good hitter. We talked about this before he died, not that he turned me around at the plate but the fact that I was a crappy hitter. My life has been spent on the edge of the Mendoza line. (For those that don’t know what this is just google Mendoza Line or Mario Mendoza.) I haven’t hit for power but my dream is to start hitting balls over the fence, that way I can trot around the bases versus having to dig hard to get on base.

In the years since I have wondered what it would feel like to bat left-handed. However I was always too afraid to try it in a practice or game with real people. However today since for the first time in a long time I am playing somewhat organized ball I went to a batting cage after I did my circuit training around the lake in my neighborhood.

My first 40 swings were from the right side. But then I decided to go to the left side. It was amazing. My swing felt natural and not only did I make contact but it felt natural. I realized then that everything that I thought was right was really left.

Come to think of it for years of my life  tried for whatever reason to stay to the political and religious right side of the house. Of course that was before Iraq, PTSD and a major faith crisis. After that I ended up somewhat on the left. I moderate but somehow more to the left than the right. Maybe that makes me a switch hitter too.

That reminds me of an exchange in the TV series 30 Rock. 

Jack: When I was at Princeton I played baseball AND football. And back then football players went both ways.

Dotcom: Really? So you went both ways?

Jack: Yeah! We all did. It was the 70s.

In between as well as later tonight and tomorrow I will be doing some more studying and reading for my class and getting ready for my second exam at the Joint and Combined Warfighting School. Tomorrow after I celebrate Eucharist at my chapel I will do my PT, I think I  might run and then head over to the batting cage again. In the afternoon I will be meeting Pulitzer Prize winning author David Wood to talk about PTSD and suicide in the military. David is a war correspondent and Military Editor for the Huffington Post.

Tuesday, Lord willing and the shutdown not sending half of my team home I will be playing in my first game. By the way I do intend on hitting from the left side. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Pray for me a sinner and have a great night.

Peace

Padre Steve+

4 Comments

Filed under Baseball, Loose thoughts and musings, philosophy

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 16, 2013 · 23:40

“Breaking Bats” Broken Bats and Life

994899_10151847060517059_47934649_n

“Your bat is your life. It’s your weapon. You don’t want to go into battle with anything that feels less than perfect.” Lou Brock

Today something happened that to me that I have never had happen to me. I broke a bat while hitting in a slow pitch softball practice. We play old guy rules in the intramural league that I play in as a student and in about 9 weeks or so as faculty at the Joint Forces Staff College. Last week while pursuing a pop foul ball on the fist base line I pulled a butt muscle and today while throwing a ball tweaked a muscle in my elbow. We were playing in a light drizzle and the wet ball slipped out of my fingers as I threw it and I felt a slight tweak, which remained painful for the rest of the practice.

Both of those injuries are painful and because I am 53 years old are not helpful to my playing days. However, I will continue to play because I love the game and I am at times not very bright. But like Satchel Paige said “We don’t stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing.”

Now as far as the bat goes I am a purist. I bat with a wooden bat, even in softball. Of course it is an approved “official softball” bat as opposed to a baseball bat, but it is still wood. I have tried aluminum or other metal or composite bats but they just don’t feel natural. In fact when I bat with them it is almost like my mind locks up and my batting average sinks like the Titanic. When Yogi Berra said “Baseball is ninety percent mental. he other half is physical” he was absolutely right, you do the math.

Now broken bats are part of life even if you don’t play ball. We all break break bats, be they real bats or metaphorical bats at some time in our life. Hell I’ve broken a lot of things, some by mistake and some intentionally. I have learned the hard way to make sure if I am wound up too tight to make sure whatever I throw is not breakable. Sometimes this is a challenge when the PTSD kicks in and I need to throw something.

About six months ago in my previous assignment I was having a very frustrating day and emotionally hit the wall. I needed to throw something. I looked around my office and realized that all the baseballs I had were autographed. Likewise anything that would have been nice to throw was somehow important to me.

Then I spied a banana on my desk. I looked at it and picked it up. Since I was the only one in the office I walked out, looked down the hallway which was empty and charged for the nearest exit which emptied into a patio on the back side of the hospital. I ran out onto the patio and threw the banana as far as I could. No one saw me, nothing was broken, except the banana which I assume was eaten by local wildlife, thus contributing to the circle of life, and my need to get my physical anger out was assuaged but I digress… That being said throwing something is not the same as breaking a bat.

I liked the bat that broke today. It was like a friend. I am not a power hitter but when I am in a groove everything feels right. In our first practice last week I felt good. I was making good contact and the ball was falling for hits. Ground balls and line drives. However today something didn’t feel quite right. Part I am sure was my arm which I had tweaked the muscle near my elbow, but the bat didn’t feel right. Whenever I hit the ball it didn’t seem right. Maybe I had already damaged it in the previous practice or maybe it had bounced around in the back of my Ford Escape. But whatever happened it just didn’t feel right.

Then it happened. I thought I had a good pitch, went for it and when the bat hit the ball I heard the crack. The ball was inside and I was jammed but the ball was hit sharply to the third baseman who threw me out but everyone was wondering about the bat. I knew it was broken. I went back and picked it up. A couple of us looked at it and sure enough just about the grip on the handle where I hit the ball there was a crack. It was like a hairline fracture, but the bat was now dead.

In my last at bat I had to use a composite bat, with which I did succeed in lining a solid single into left field. However, after practice I took my old Rawlings Adirondack “Big Stick” made of Ash to my car and went home. I then went out to have a couple of beers and a light dinner at Gordon Biersch after which I went out and bought me a new Louisville Slugger “125 SB” Powerized wooden softball bat made of White Ash. It too feels good. I cannot wait to use it at our next practice.

I have broken many things in life as I said, but this was the first time in years of playing baseball or softball that I have ever broken a bat. The fact that it happened in slow pitch makes it even more amazing. But I guess that is life. Maybe someday I will hit a home run. There is a sign in left field that says 230’, I have three years to put it over that wall. It may mean buying a few more bats, but one day I will get my home run.

After all if I can break a bat in slow pitch ball maybe I might have enough in me to put one over that fence.

Peace

Padre Steve+

20130916-233922.jpg

2 Comments

Filed under Baseball, Loose thoughts and musings

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 26, 2011 · 23:50

Back on the Diamond: Padre Steve takes the Field

“Fundamentals are the most valuable tools a player can possess. Bunt the ball into the ground. Hit the cutoff man. Take the extra base. Learn the fundamentals.” Dick Williams

“Be on time. Bust your butt. Play smart. And have some laughs along the way.” Whitey Herzog

“I could field as long as I can remember, but hitting has been a struggle all my life.” Brooks Robinson

“Am I still in uniform? Then I ain’t retired.” Pete Rose

I can still hear my dad’s voice every time I pick up a bat, glove or ball.  Today was no different. At the age of 51 I stepped back onto a softball field to play for the Naval Hospital team on a Marine Corps Base. It is the first time since seminary nearly 20 years ago that I have had the chance to play in an organized league. I was a bottom of the 4th inning defensive substitute and went out to a familiar position, Right Field.  I have always whether in baseball or softball been a utility player and play pretty well on defense though my arm doesn’t have the power or range that it had 20 or 30 years ago and I have never been much of a hitter. Basically I have a lifetime average somewhere around the Mendoza line and though a decent number of my hits were doubles, more due to where I hit them than how far I hit them I only had one season where my hitting came together.  That season ended early when I was run over at home plate by a player that ploughed into me like Pete Rose did to Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star Game.  I landed on my throwing hand and broke my arm just above the wrist, so much for a season in the sun.

Today was a good day. It was just good to be back out on the diamond even if I was a mid game substitute.  Despite my age I am not the oldest player on the team, there is one player a number of years older than me and one just a bit younger by a couple of years.  Unlike the Marine teams we also have some of our civilian employee’s means that we are older in comparison to the Marine teams.  Even so most of the other players are in the 20-30 year age range.  The team is pretty good and has been in the playoffs and is expected to be there again, although tonight was one of those nights where little went right.  Basically it came down to not doing the fundamentals of defense and hitting.  We lost but have games on Wednesday and Thursday.

As I said at the beginning I still hear the voice of my dad in my head every time I step onto the field. My dad was a man who believed in teaching the fundamentals of the game and drilled me constantly in our back yard doing infield drills, playing pepper and teaching me to pitch. Unfortunately he did little to teach me about hitting except to turn me from being a lefty to a righty. One of the last conversations that we had before his mind slipped into the clutches of Alzheimer’s dementia and he could no longer recognized me was when I told him that I heard his voice telling me to “get your butt down” “stay in front of the ball” “follow the ball into your glove” “run out every play” “never step on the foul line going on or off the field” “go into every base hard” “always know the count and how many runners are on base” and “hustle every play.”  He was a big fan of Pete Rose, “Charlie Hustle” and he drilled that kind of ethic into my head. I wish that I had continued to play baseball rather that dabbling in Ice Hockey and Football during Junior High and High School; I might have done pretty well.

Yet in that last visit I told him that he never taught me to hit. He told me that hitting was a gift and not many people could do it well. Thus I languish as a hitter to this day. I came to the plate one time grounding weakly into a fielder’s choice to end the top of the 6th inning though I dug hard and ran the ball out just in case the fielder went to first or if an error was made.  At the same time I hustled on every play. As dad told me I ran on and off the field, made sure that I didn’t step onto the foul line, kept my situational awareness and made sure that I was where I needed to be to make plays.  When the game was over I felt good. Here I was a 51 year old man playing a game with men who for the most part were a lot younger than me.  Tomorrow is another game.

Over the weekend I plan on going to a batting cage near the island hermitage to work out my hitting mechanics. I know what I did wrong on that weak grounder but the only way to correct it is more at bats and I won’t get that many as a mid-game substitute.  What I don’t want to say about my hitting is what Andy Van Slyke said “I have an Alka Seltzer bat. You know, plop plop fizz fizz. When the pitcher sees me walking up there they say, ‘Oh what a relief it is.'”

I was happy with my range in the outfield as well as my speed getting to first base.  I will also put my ball return net together and practice some throwing and infield work and probably use my “heavy ball” to build up my arm strength.

God I love this game.

Peace

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under Baseball, philosophy, sports and life

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

May 28, 2009 · 21:27

Going Nuclear….Kim Jung Il, Carlos Zambrano and Padre Steve get Sporty

This week we witnessed a couple of big explosions, that of a nuclear test conducted by North Korea and one at Wrigley Field conducted by Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano.  Both were pretty sporty.  However, there the difference is more than one being the test of a weapon of mass destruction and the other an emotional response after a close play at home.   One was a deliberate premeditated act and the other in some sense a “crime of passion.”  They are very different types of acts.

North Korea under the despotic Kim Jung Il decided to give the big fat flying middle finger to the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.  It is interesting that even the Russians and Chinese seem kind of pissed about what the boy named Kim did.  Kim now known as the “Great Leader” having been promoted from simply the “Dear Leader” is kind of wacky but in a dangerous sort of way.  The surly North Koreans then decided that they no longer considered the 1954 armistice valid.  This of course raised the pucker factor on the Korean peninsula and Japan.  Nukes are serious stuff, ask the Japanese.  I remember back in 2002 when my ship, the USS Hue City was deployed supporting Operation Enduring Freedom the Indians and Pakistanis came perilously close to a nuclear confrontation.  We were in between the Indian and Pakistani fleets and their patrol aircraft buzzed us frequently.  It was as my Captain said “A bit sporty.”   Back in my days as a Company XO and Company Commander in Cold War Germany we waited for the day that the Russian would come across the Fulda Gap.  While there I was trained as a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Defense Officer.  The training was kind of cool.  We got to learn how much radiation, measured in “Rads” that we could take and live.  We learned about blast effects, fallout patterns and decoding EAM’s.  The really cool yet scary thing was that the 1:50,000 maps we used to plot the fallout patterns showed our housing areas.  It really brought home that this was not a game.  When the nuclear plant at Chernobyl had its little meltdown the radiation cloud actually went over where we lived.  I think this is why some people refer to me having a “glowing” personality.  So what the nutty North Koreans have done is kind of serious.  Of course they do crazy stuff all the time, but this appears to be their first successful nuke test and significantly raises the stakes.  Of course I want this to pass as it is baseball season and for the first time I have season tickets.  I don’t want a huge war to screw this up.  Of course I want it to not happen at all, but if it does I would prefer it to wait until after the baseball season is over.

Speaking of baseball, Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano was suspended for six games following this meltdown.

http://cubs.fandome.com/video/112492/Carlos-Zambrano-Tantrum-May-27-2009/

Now I will not cast stones at Zambrano.  He plays with passionate fire and really strives for excellence. I have seen him pitch and he is amazing.  I love to watch him and only wished that he pitched for the Giants.  I have a passion for what I do and want to be the best at that I can.  Like Zambrano I have had similar meltdowns when I have felt like I was getting screwed, be it by an umpire or someone else.  I have been tossed from church softball games, pulled aside by coaches and when I watch Zambrano doing his thing I want to hide because I have done this before…well I didn’t take a bat to a Gatorade cooler, but had we had one I might have.  I have thrown things, kicked dirt on umpires and got in people’s faces.  As noted in a previous post when I was in the Army I got thrown out of the officer advanced course and did not help myself by having a Zambrano like meltdown in the process.  I was so lucky to have Chaplain Rich Whaley save me on several occasions both when I got thrown out and when I was the assistance course leader of my Chaplain Officer Basic Course.  With my PTSD I had a number of meltdowns at the tail end of my Iraq tour, before I knew I was whacked out, and have had my moments since I came home.

Now to be fair to me, I am not proud of those kind of outbursts. I usually feel worse afterward because I don’t like being out of control.  I like to control my emotions and stay calm.  I am like a Romulan in that aspect.  I try to keep myself in perfect control but can blow it big, unlike my Vulcan cousins.  I have been fortunate.  First I had people who helped ensure that I did not destroy my Army career.  Likewise, I have had a number of people in my life since I have come back from Iraq help me learn to manage this.  In fact I was able to step back from the brink at one Chaplain Conference where I thought the main presenter had ambushed me and violated essential facets of how cases are presented. I discussed the matter with my colleagues and run a plan by my Department Head on how to publicly address the situation, get my point across and not look like an ass in doing so.  It was like doing a “brush back” pitch rather than a “bean ball.”  I was controlled and afterward got out before I could do anything stupid while department head smoothed ruffled feathers.  The audience was pretty much in a state of shock when I did this, many in sat in silence as I finished and a number of my colleagues who felt the same way as I applauded when I finished.  I left the room and a colleague came out with me and walked with me for a while to make sure that I was okay.  I avoided going nuclear.  I didn’t get tossed this time.  It was a victory.  At the same time I know that when I start playing softball or old man baseball again I will get fired up, and probably like Zambrano tossed out.  If I go into coaching I will probably have arguments with the umpires and hopefully they will not be like this classic Minor League blow up…talk about nukes.  This one is for the ages:

http://www.fandome.com/video/102293/Mississippi-Braves-Manager-Goes-Crazy/

Anyway, I do thank the Deity Herself from keeping me safe from my own tirades and am glad for all those who help me stay in the game and keep my head now.  Because of them and others who have both helped and protected me in the past I hope to be able to mentor and teach others.

Peace, Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under Baseball, Foreign Policy, Loose thoughts and musings, Military, PTSD

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,