Charlene and I grew up being very active, shunning most "girl" toys and instead choosing to play tackle football in the snow with the boys in the neighborhood. It helped that we were amazons who were bigger than just about all of the boys. We ran shit. And we loved it! We played everything...football, basketball, kickball, dodge ball, street races....everything, that is except baseball. Now this should not have been a big deal given our enviable skills in all of the other sports (no grandiosity there!), but it broke my dad's heart. He was a fantastic pitcher in his day and to hear him tell it, he could have played in the majors (which begs the question why then would you join the Army??). All he wanted was for use to play catch with him and to be able to pass on his skills to us, his pseudo-sons. But we weren't having it. I HATED baseball. It might be because I was forced to play catch and coached hard (read yelled at) when I sucked, which was often. I am not sure if I would have liked it had it not been forced on me but my inkling is no. For starters, that ball is hard and most of the time there is a good chance that it might hit you in the head. This is not a situation in which I would readily place myself. Secondly, there is the whole batting situation. See, the thing that I love about most team sports is just that, you are on a team and thus someone is out there with you and has your back in case you mess up. But in baseball, it is just you and the bat. And it is a LONG DAMN WALK back to the dugout when you strike out. It only took a few times of me making this walk during a neighborhood game to realize that A: I sucked and B: I really didn't want to play anymore! So I spent my childhood resisting my father's pleas, urgings, and not so gentle pushing to join a softball team. I had no desire whatsoever to play and the harder he pushed, the further in I dug my heels. I won. I never joined a team.
As I grew up and all of my friends were joining these fun summer softball leagues complete with beer and good times, I began to regret my choice of not learning the elements of the game. It seemed as if EVERYONE had some experience with "America's pastime" (maybe that nickname should have been a hint?) and I the odd man out. It was too late now. There was no way I could subject myself to the humiliation of joining a league and displaying my horrendous softball skills (if you could even call them that). So every spring I came up with some creative excuse as to why I couldn't join a team (my personal favorite being that I just couldn't find a glove that was comfortable...I don't think they believed me). I did want to play, but how could I? I was terrible. Truth be told, I hadn't swung a bat in too many years to count and the idea of making an ass of myself terrified me. I hadn't even been to a batting cage, which had always kind of intrigued me....
So here we are, on the cusp of 35, planning my very first trip to the batting cages. Clearly this would have to be a solo trip. I am not delusional enough to think I will actually be able to hit the ball with any consistency and didn't really need an audience for this fiasco. I found a place fairly close to my house and planned to squeeze in my first batting session in the free hour I had between work and picking up Sammi. It's snowing and dark, which means that everyone in the city is driving two miles an hour and breaking for no damn reason, so it is taking me forever to get there....but it is not where I think it is. I drive and drive and drive down what I am sure is Old State Route 74 but all I am seeing are lovely suburban neighborhoods. I drive further than a sane person should before I finally pull over and call the place. Turns out I have no clue where this damn place is. I get directions that seem clear at the time, finally find Old SR 74 but still can't find anything that says Backstop Sports. My hour is quickly dwindling and I am beginning to freak out. I hate to be lost, and even more that than, I hate when I have something perfectly planned and it gets messed up (you can see why I am a stress case most of the time). I call Backstop again the guy on the phone isn't even hiding the fact that he is laughing at me. This time I am on the right road but have gone about ten minutes past where I am supposed to be. Great. Freakin fabulous. And it seems like every car in the eastern part of the city is on this road, right now, and driving slow as molasses and costing me valuable batting time.
I finally arrive at Backstop Sports and walk in to see a smirking older man behind the desk. I realize that he must know I was the frantic woman on the phone since there are no other females in the building. There are several dads there with their pre-teen sons looking very serious and clearly devoted to reliving their glory days through their unsuspecting offspring. I tell the man behind the desk that I have never been here before (to which he replies "No! Really?!" It takes all of my self control not to reach over the desk and karate chop him in the throat) and ask how the whole thing works. He explains that each of the six cages can pitch softballs or baseballs and do so at different speeds. He asks me what speed I want and I give him a look that I hope expresses my mounting irritation. If I knew that, I wouldn't be asking your advice, now would I? He suggests that I start at the cage with the 45 mph baseballs. I feel dumb because the boys half my age (but twice my skill I am sure) are at the cages with much faster balls, but my pride is not such that I will walk into the 60 mph cage just to look cool. I purchase my tokens for 60 pitches (twelve pitches per token), which seems like a lot to me, grab my lovely (required, ugh!) helmet, choose a bat and head to cage 5. I can feel the eyes of the dads on me as I put the token in and push the start button. I try to block them out and concentrate on taking all of the frustration of being lost out on the balls that are about to be flying at my head. The first ball comes so quickly that I don't even swing at it. The next one comes and I swing for the fences. Nothing. I miss the next one. And the next. I finally get a tiny piece of my bat on the ball and I am ecstatic because that means I will not have completely failed on my first round of pitches. I whiff the rest of the pitches and turn to head out of the cage. Mr. Laugh at the New Girl is there and tells me that I am holding my right elbow too low and if I put it up I'll have a better chance of hitting the ball. Yeah yeah yeah. I don't want to listen to him because, well, I hate him, but I don't want a repeat performance either, so I put in my next token and step back into the cage. Right elbow up...ball coming at me...swing....CRACK!
YEEEEEEEEEES!!!!
Okay, maybe it wasn't a "crack" per se, but I hit that ball and it felt amazing. I felt powerful. I hit the next one too...harder! And then I missed a few. But I didn't care because I was having a great time! I didn't care who was watching, or that I was missing more than I was hitting, this was awesome. The feel of the bat connecting with the ball was unlike any that I had felt before. My irritation from the inadvertent detour was long gone, and all I wanted to do was keep hitting the balls. I thought 60 balls was a lot but in what seemed like five minutes I was reaching for another token only to find my pocket empty. Damn that was fun! My competitive and perfectionist spirit would not let me just hit the balls and have fun. I was keeping track of how many balls I hit even though I didn't want to. My best round was 7 out of 12. Hey! Wait a minute! That's a batting average of .583! I'm a freakin' stud! That is hall of fame shit right there! And I thought I sucked! God bless a sport where you can succeed less than fifty percent of the time and still be considered great.
Baseball....where have you been all my life?
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