My Brief and Unsuccessful Journey in Baseball

This is the story of my time in the game of baseball. Short and unsuccessful? Maybe. Okay, definitely. But the memories still fuel the passion I have for America's Pastime.

I've told you this before, but my first word was "ball," so I was clearly destined to be a sports fanatic. It's my parents' fault, really. Not only did they constantly ask me "Do you want your ball?" before I could speak, but they both love sports themselves. If you ever think my mom doesn't get fired up from the competition, try watching Olympic volleyball with her sometime. That's an experience! And my dad and I, as is becoming eerily apparent, are incredibly similar and love all sports, but it might be baseball that shares our passion most.

I know, based on a couple previous posts you probably believe that basketball is my favorite sport, and that is probably the case. But you'll also recall that I have said that when I was younger my favorite sport fluctuated with the season. To be honest, it still does, and it's currently baseball season so let's talk about my journey with America's pastime. 

To be completely honest I'm not sure where it all started for me. I can remember playing catch with both of my parents growing up. Obviously my dad taught me a lot about the game, but my mom was a softball star in her day so she taught me a fair amount too. They also encouraged my passion for the game by giving me books about the history of baseball and an autobiography by Cal Ripken Jr. as well as some fictional novels, many that were historically based, that I always found interesting.

There were also some habits I had when I was younger, such as biting my nails and watching an imaginary ball fly around the room during church, that my parents wanted me to break. Apparently I looked a little strange looking all around the room at nothing while chomping on my nails. To help conquer this I was told that if I could go x number of days without doing those things they would take me to the store and buy me a pennant or a pack of baseball cards. That was a highly successful form of bribery! My room was decorated all over with pennants, and most of them were baseball teams. Even today, much to my wife's chagrin, the "I Was There" Rockies pennant hangs in our bedroom.

My poor wife. Our bedroom has a pennant, a Rockies flag, several signed baseballs and a few autographed cards. It doesn't get much better in the living room where a small canvas with logos of all 30 MLB teams hangs next to a display of a Rockies hat, a foul ball, and a bat signed by a minor leaguer. My dad recently sent me the complete 2013 and 2014 baseball card sets, and my wife's reaction was "Why?" 

Because it's awesome.

I guess if she knew me in my childhood it might make a bit more sense. As with many children I'm sure, I was frequently told it was time to go clean my room. My poor mother, though. She faced the impossible task of convincing me that reorganizing my baseball cards did not actually qualify as cleaning. In my defense, I did occasionally reorganize my bookshelf too! But that also involved my precious baseball cards as I tried to find the perfect place to shelve the binders that housed them.

I loved following the players' statistics. As a kid I would lay out the cards on the floor and piece together the team I would field if I was manager of the Rockies. In fact, some of my Rockies cards have a number written on them, one through nine, to signify the spot in the batting order I would place them if they were my team. Don't worry though, it wasn't the nice cards I did that to!

Much of my childhood was defined by my ridiculous ability to absorb sports stats and information, but I also did a good amount of playing. As with many kids, my baseball "career" began with t-ball. I have very little recollection of t-ball, with the exception of a few images in my mind of practices and maybe a game or two. But I can't really remember running the bases, throwing anyone out, or even taking any swings. But I do remember that it happened!

Somewhere in this time period my uncle Roger said I should try and be a switch hitter. So I did. My parents had already bought a tee for me to practice on, so I started taking cuts from both sides and discovered I had the ability to pull it off. I actually didn't realize how early I became a switch hitter until I came across a picture of me batting left handed in softball as a six or seven year old. 

Yep, you read that right. I was playing softball. We were living in Colorado at the time and the baseball leagues had their games on Sundays, so in an effort to keep the Sabbath day holy my parents signed me up for softball (slow pitch) instead. Again, I don't remember a whole lot from my softball days, but I do remember it started with coach pitch and eventually the players were pitching. My dad pitches a lot in his slow pitch softball leagues, so he taught me how to do it so I could pitch in my games. He even taught me how to put backspin on the ball like he did. I have no idea how successful I really was, but I remember feeling pretty proud of my pitching ability. And that's really all I remember about softball. 

Apparently I was such a good pitcher my teammates felt no
need to stand in ready position behind me.

I remember a lot of other baseball related activities while living in Colorado, though. First of all, we moved there in 1993, the same year the Rockies were born. Perfect timing! While I was born in Maryland and began my life as an Orioles fan, it didn't take long for the Rockies to become my team. My dad had season tickets with a group at work which meant we got to go to plenty of games each season. I can still name the starting position players from some of those early Blake Street Bomber teams--Girardi, Galarraga, Young, Weiss, Castilla, Bichette, Burks, Walker. Sure there were other guys in there depending on the season, but those eight were my team.

Another of my favorite memories was the 1999 All-Star Game at Coors Field. Because the season tickets my dad had a share in were in his name, he claimed the tickets to the Midsummer Classic. We went to the All-Star Fan Fest and participated in a lot of the festivities.  That game and the surrounding festivities are some of my of my favorite memories at the ballpark from my childhood. 

I remember during the game I saw, and took a picture of, an outfielder from the Arizona Diamondbacks. I was pretty excited to see him because I had started cheering for the Diamondbacks when they came into the league. They didn't supersede my Rockies, but I cheered for a lot of different teams just because I liked baseball and I guess I just enjoyed having a dog in every fight. I actually remember being on the playground one day and complimenting a kid on his Diamondbacks hat and getting a funny look in return. I guess he was surprised to hear that in Colorado, but I just loved the game and loved sharing in the joy of baseball with anyone I could. 

At one of my early birthdays I was given a set of bases from a friend and we put them to great use in the neighborhood. I remember one night where I organized a big whiffle ball game with pretty much the  entire cul-de-sac. We shut down the whole street and played a great game. Of course it was a hot summer evening and I was forced to call it quits early due to heat exhaustion, but it was a blast! I loved that baseball could bring so many people together and I hope there are others who remember that night like I do. 

Just after my tenth birthday my family moved from Colorado to Washington. Especially from a baseball perspective this was an exciting move! I would now get an opportunity to play Little League baseball. I was excited for the Little League Combine (or whatever it was called, but that's basically what it was). I'm sure I did horribly as I had never played actual baseball, but I was drafted by the Cardinals, probably as Mr. Irrelevant, but who cares! It was time to play ball!

I was actually pretty excited about playing for the Cardinals. My mom had given me an old Cardinals shirt from her playing days, and I already owned a Cardinals hat. Also, I was an Ozzie Smith fan: who isn't? I liked to believe that he was my uncle. Still do, actually. 

Unfortunately my ability did not match my enthusiasm. Nor did it match my uncle Ozzie's dazzling play -- though I did get to wear his number 1. Don't ask me how I remember this, but I went 1-for-16 at the plate in my first year of baseball. I was pretty patient though, I've always had a decent eye, so I drew some walks and reached on some errors occasionally, and even laid down some good bunts, but boy that's a pretty bad batting average. One thing I've always regretted about my Little League experience is that I didn't switch hit at all. I don't know if it was because my coaches wanted me to focus on one side of the plate or if I lacked the confidence to try, but I hit (or at least swung the bat) exclusively right-handed. 

I was also tucked away into right field for most of my rookie season, eventually getting good enough to move to left and even center once or twice, but certainly never in the infield. I was most definitely not ready for that. But regardless of my struggles in the field and at the plate my team saw a fair amount of success. We didn't make the big tournament, but we played in one of the lower ones and actually won the championship. In spite of my inexperience and poor play we experienced something special as a team. 

I practiced a lot in the offseason, determined to be a decent ball player by the time my second year of baseball rolled around. I spent hours in my back yard hitting off a tee and throwing against a three-way trainer my parents got me to practice throwing, fielding grounders, and catching fly balls. And the next season I was ready to move into the infield. 

That year I spent most of my time at third, with some time at second as well, including all of that year's tournament. I also played one inning at first but I did not enjoy that. At one point in the season I wanted to pitch so coach let me try in practice. It did not go well. So I stayed as a second and third baseman and was quite happy with the defensive improvement I had made. 

But the biggest leap of development was with my bat. I had made such strides that I began the season batting second in the lineup. I struggled early on - maybe it was the pressure of batting so early in a game or maybe I was just slumping - so I was dropped to the seven spot where I began to thrive. I finished the season batting .500 (8-16) and even developed a little power. The best game of my life, and the only time I ever earned a game ball, I ripped an RBI double into deep right-center and then scored on two throwing errors. It was the best hit of my Little League career, but it wasn't even the highlight of the game. That came in the bottom of the 6th (the final inning in Little League) in a tie game and with a runner on third. I scorched a ball toward short where it bounced harmlessly off his outstretched glove giving me a walkoff RBI single. I was pumped, and felt a huge sense of pride and a feeling that I had arrived when Coach Tom (the other coach was named Jerry. Tom and Jerry. No joke.) came up to me and handed me the game ball with a smile and a "Nice game." 

That season we fell one game short of the league title but still advanced to the top regional tournament where we were eliminated quickly. It was a fantastic season for the team, but especially for me! I had such a good year that a few months later I remember a kid being shocked when he found out I hadn't made the Selah All-Star team. I probably didn't quite deserve that honor, but I felt good that people noticed I had been successful. 

That season was just before my seventh grade year, and as you have read in this blog before that is when my life went a little bit crazy. I was running with the wrong friends, and being a stupid kid. I lacked a lot of self-confidence; I was picked on for being a bit of a geek and teased relentlessly for being Mormon. I went where I was accepted. It just so happened that was a small group of friends that were gamers a bit geeky. I don't want to be critical of them. I'm sure they turned out to be great guys, but at the time they certainly did not encourage me to be even remotely who I was at the core. From the end of my seventh grade basketball season to the spring of my freshman year of high school I didn't play a single organized sport, including baseball. 

It still hurts that I would betray myself like that. Sure I was bullied, and sure I was desperate for friends, but sports were my life to that point and the year before I had a stellar baseball season. But I don't even recall considering playing baseball for my school in seventh grade. 

By the time I finally pulled myself together I was a freshman in high school. Spring rolled around and I decided it was time to get out there and start playing sports and being myself again, and I went straight to baseball. 

It didn't go well. Not only did I show up in sweat pants since I no longer had baseball pants that fit and cleats a size too small for the same reason, in the past two years everyone had surpassed me physically. I was still scrawny and I hadn't hit the same growth spurt everyone else had and stood at just 5'4" -- maybe. Throughout my life I had been able to compensate my lack of strength with good mechanics and had always had a terrific arm for my age. Now everyone had good mechanics and strength and I just didn't compare. Combine that with the fact that I had lost a lot in the previous two years of not playing and I stood no chance of making what was widely considered the top baseball program in the state of Washington at the time. Not even being a switch hitter could save me from being cut. 

The good news is that I still played tennis that spring and the sports-loving me was back. But the bad news is that I look at that two year period of rebellion and wonder what could have been. I doubt I would have ever been anything special, but my over-active imagination has to think about it. Granted, my baseball playing career likely would have come to a close just a little over a year later anyway when my family moved across the pond to England for the second time.

The school I went to was an American school but it was small and didn't have as many sports as most schools in the states. My junior year I ran track and my senior year I played basketball, soccer, and a little tennis, though that wasn't officially sanctioned by the school. I did play softball on my dad's base intramural team, and softball is about as close to baseball as I have been since Little League. 

That year playing softball I had a perfect on base percentage until the very last game when I was thrown out for the very first time. As I hadn't played in a few years I could no longer hit real well, especially since all my muscle memory was now with my tennis ground strokes. Hard to hit a softball a long way with your shoulders over the ball and putting topspin on it. So I took the Ichiro approach and bat lefty all season and slapped at the ball while I started my running motion. I usually placed the ball towards third and beat the throw, except for the one at bat in the last game of the year. One game during the season, after I had hit about three singles already from the left side, the opposing catcher told me to bat righty so they had a chance. So I did -- and I ripped a single up the middle. Switch hitter remember?

Now I'm relegated to intramural and city league softball. I've become a decent defensive player but I'm still not a great hitter, although I watch a video breaking down Ken Griffey, Jr's swing pretty frequently and that seems to help. I still take a lot of walks to get on base since I know my hitting isn't anything special. My wife's favorite thing is for me to hit lefty once or twice and have the opposing team catch on and shift as I come to the plate, only for me to switch on them and hit right. She enjoys the confusion on their faces. She's also pretty good at picking the best side of the plate for me to hit from and where to place the ball. I've got a great hitting coach! 

So with my "serious" playing days behind me -- and they've been behind me for years -- I look forward to coaching my kids' Little League teams, playing in the backyard, and watching them grow up in America's pastime. It's disappointing to me to watch this game that has meant so much to me fall out of favor with so many Americans. Steroids, commercials extending games well beyond three hours, a slower pace compared to basketball and football, etc. So many reasons have led to baseball's decline, but the game has meant so much to me, and it has meant so much to many others as well. So regardless of what happens to the game going forward, I look forward to making it a part of my family -- because my wife is bound to start loving baseball eventually -- forever.