An Idiot's Guide to Playing Baseball as Told by an Idiot (Part 4)

When my nightmare on the pitching mound came to a crashing halt, I finished out the rest of my first season back in the little leagues, returning after a six year drought. Even though the pitches weren't mine to throw the rest of the season, I still had to play the field, and unfortunately, come to bat. One game, my coach batted me in the clean-up spot, in an attempt to build my confidence. The clean-up spot is the 4th man to bat on a team, who is usually the best, or second best hitter on the team, and always shows great displays of power, so they can bat in men left on base. Just because I had a gut that hung far over my belt line didn't qualify me as a clean-up hitter. When a teammate laughed out loud (lol'd, if you will) while reading that game's line up card, I was so mad and embarrassed that I deliberately struck out 4 times. I was a lost cause in cleats.

Finally, with about five games to go in the season, I was 0 for 2 in that day's game when I came up to bat. Suddenly, the opposing team took out their pitcher and put in a kid who I actually knew from school. My fears dissolved as I thought, "Hey, I know this guy." He couldn't be very tough. He was a wimp in real life, like me. How good could he be on the mound?

Apparently, not very good at all, because after he delivered his second pitch, I squared in and shot the ball into center field. BASE HIT. I had my first hit of the season. It was one of the greatest comebacks of my life.

As the humidity intensified, and final exams hide just around the corner, my first season back in the big time was over. My team took a decidedly deserved spot in last place, with me only aiding in our decline. As I left my last game, I felt a tremendous weight drop from my shoulders. Still, I was a little sentimental. I finished the season with a whopping 3 hits. Some players get 4 or 5 a game, on a great night. Me, I just didn't want to push it.

So next spring, when I was in 8th grade, my parent's asked if they should sign me up for baseball again. Now, if you've been keeping up with the past few entries of this nightmare, then you know that any self respecting person with half a brain would have tried to find something they were good at and excel in other areas. Painting, or crocheting, or pottery, or truck driving. Anything. But I didn't want to be a quitter. "Sign me up," I said. If I could travel back in time, I'd kick my own ass back to the tee ball days.

So, I set off for my fourth and last season of little league. I was in 8th grade and ready for more of the same disaster. I felt like a kid walking into the middle of a bullfight, or a kid in a wheelchair who wheeled up to the school bull and spit in the back of his hair. But like I said, I didn't want to let the other assholes of the world laugh me out of something I was rightfully no good at.

And well, this team wasn't any better than the one I was on in 7th grade, as far as attitude or winning consistency. Nor did I fare any better in my play. In fact, I ended up getting 3 hits during the course of the whole season, just like the prior season. I actually improved in the outfield a bit, which is a bit anti-climatic in the whole "failure-is-the-only-option" theme of these entries. But still, when that season came to a close, I couldn't wait to hang up my cap and declare that I would never, under circumstances of deadly consequence, try out for high school baseball. My playing days were deservedly done.

Looking back, my 8th grade season was pretty dull. Scary for me, for sure. However, there weren't too many moments where I wished I was dead, as I had in 7th grade. I mostly sat around and prayed for rainouts or practice cancellations. Or hoped against odds my teammates would strikeout early so I didn't have to get up in the inning. It's was a pretty dull season. Embarrassing, for sure, but dull, and for that I won't dwell on it.

When my 7th and 8th grade seasons had ended I racked up a total of 6 hits. I did some rough calculations the other day and deduced that my adolescent little league average was about .038 with, roughly, 110 strikeouts. If you haven't figured out, that kind of performance is punishable by execution in most countries.

So, I gave up the game of organized baseball forever. Maybe, one day I'll be coaching my kid's little league team or sign up to be a conditioning coach for a local high school team. But that's all down the beaten path. A path lined with cleat marks and used tobacco juice. For now, I'll reserve my duties to sitting on the couch, watching Mets' games, and ESPN baseball highlights. I'll read my baseball memoirs, newspapers, and memorize Hall of Famer's stats. I'll watch my movies and wish I could have done something out on the basepaths or had the wisdom to have kept my nerve in the game on every inside pitch thrown to me as a first grader. So the next time you see a major league player drop a routine fly ball, or swing at a pitch headed for his groin to end a rally, think of me and all the asthmatic, allergic, chubby, nimrods of the world. Maybe we're sittin' around writing a blog somewhere. Or a life story. Or a novel. Or a declaration to the greatest games and moments that slipped through our fingers and passed us by without going easy on us.

Someday.