Nerve Wracking Baseball Debut

It was cold. It was wet. The infield had a small puddle around shortstop and the other team's coach was begging off the game. A little voice inside me said "A postponement of this game wouldn't be the worst thing.". Except that it would mean another few days of nervous waiting to see if I could still hit the fastball. Like I ever really could. An over-40 league was what I was told this would be, only upon arriving last Saturday for practice, I found that it's now an 0ver-37 league. I thought about going home at that point, being 20 years over the minimum age was asking for trouble and inviting major ridicule at some point. I stuck around because I've got 2 athletic daughters (Old One and Young One, both in their 20s) who would give me no end of shit if I chickened out. So, I stuck around. And now here it is game day (albeit a preseason game) and it looks like we barely have enough guys, so I'm probably going to play. If we play.



Sure enough the ump shows up and starts screaming at the other coach about "what the hell, we're all here, let's have a frickkin' game!" I've waited too long to warm up my arm which feels tight and who knows what position I'm going to play. I'm nervous, not scared, nervous. I'm 57 years old in reasonably good shape and I'm trying to play baseball, not softball mind you, where the bases are 60 feet apart- but baseball, where the bases are 90 feet apart and they throw overhanded at 80 miles and hour, not underhanded at 15 miles an hour.


"You're playing right and batting ninth" Freddy, who is Mr Baseball in Mill City (a pseudonym) and has played this game with Abner Doubleday I'm sure, tells me. A not little known fact in baseball is that right field is where you put your worst fielder, ninth is where you bat your worst hitter. I was happy. I wouldn't get too many balls hit to me in right and I'd get to watch 8 guys before me bat. This was an embarrassment that I could live with. For now.



At the practice the week before, also in the rain, I pitched BP (batting practice) a bit. I got the ball over the plate consistently and guys were able to hit it all over the park. This impressed Freddy a bit and he asked me if I could pitch. I said sure, lying, since I hadn't pitched since high school 40 years ago. He meant could I pitch if the score were 87 to 3 and our pitcher was getting tired and he didn't want to wear any good pitchers out getting through the rest of the game. Oh.



So today he asks me again you wanna pitch later? I said I haven't pitched off a mound in a long time. I didn't lie this time and he says okay. "Oh so you're a pussy" is what he was thinking, I think. Or maybe not. Anyway, I did take my 3 ibuprofen and large cup of coffee before game time so my knees would not bark enough for anyone to hear. I ran in place a little until I realized that warming up anything other than your arm "is for pussies". No one said that actually, but you can tell it was understood. Please don't misunderstand the term pussy as used by baseball players. It is not a female, it is not a part of the anatomy, it is not a feline. It is a persona. A pussy is a weak man, fearful of getting hurt, probably cowardly, never drove a stick shift and cares how he looks. To be called a pussy by someone you know, in the company of others you know, invites nervous laughter and compells you to perform the task that might take you out of the realm of pussydom immediately. Like; "drink it you pussy'. To be called a pussy by someone you don't know, if front of someone you do, means you have to fight or you are indeed a pussy.



But I digress.



"Play ball" and out I run to right field, it's soggy and there's a puddle 10 by 10 feet along the right field line in play. I play toss with the center fielder, his name is Manny he looks 18, I find out later he's new and actually 30. Nice guy though, I think I actually got one throw to him in the air. The sky is grey and the wind is blowing out toward me and to the right. Nothing is hit to me that inning and I run in trying very hard not to look 57. The pills and coffee are working pretty well.



Shit. I left my brand new batting gloves in the car parked way the hell over there. I can't get to them. You don't borrow batting gloves in baseball, it's like asking to borrow underwear. Even pussies don't do that. Anyway we don't score, in fact 2 guys strike out no one gets the ball out of the infield. I never sat on the bench, I nervously walked around like a 7 year old at his first baseball game. Fifty years later and things haven't changed a bit.



During the course of the game I got 2 balls hit to my area, one was a rocket hit between me and Manny that travelled all the way to the fence. Manny could have gotten there before me but he could see that my skinny arthritic legs were pumping pretty good and "oh hell, let the old guy get it it's probably a thrill for him." It was. I made a decent throw into the cutoff guy and held the guy to a double. Pretty good, except that the runner was very fat- he could hit the ball a ton, but couldn't run, it diminished the value of my holding him to a double a bit. I was happy though, no mistakes. The second ball was the kind I hate, it was a high fly ball hit well and off the bat of a righty meaning it was spinning away from me toward the foul line, I got to it 2 steps late and was absolutely bullshit that I didn't get a glove on it at least. The guys were charitable back on the bench, "impossible to get that one blah, blah". I knew I had failed at my first chance to make a real lasting impression. But now it was my turn to hit, bottom of the third, runners on 2nd and 3rd - nobody out they were leading 3-0. My first at bat against live fastball pitching in 40 years and the guy on the mound looked like Paul Bunyan, 6 feet 8, 240 and was throwing peas at our guys. No one had gotten the ball out of the infield. Both our guys were on with walks and a passed ball.
He had already hit one of our players (our catcher Ben), doinking one off his helmet. No injury, but I did take notice. So I'm waiting in the on deck circle nervous as a goose and who do I see standing behind the fence chatting with Freddy the coach but Steve Greer. Steve is another Mill City basketball and baseball legend who is about 2 or 3 years older than me. He lives near me and we say hi now and then, our kids all went to Mill City High. Then I hear "Bill, I didn't know you played ball." He meant to say; "WTF are you doing out here, you didn't even grow up in this town and you think you can play ball with kids 20 years younger than you? This ought to be quite a laugh." I smiled, said something self effacing and turned toward home plate now with the potential embarrassment level elevated exponentially for my first at bat against Paul Bunyan. I am proud that I did not faint walking to the batter's box.

I dug in, lifted the bat (the only player at the game not wearing batting gloves) and the first pitch zipped by at belt level at somewhere near 200 miles an hour. Or 75 miles an hour, one of the two. Please Lord, let me make contact if I swing, or make this guy wild enough to walk me. The rest was a bit of a blur - the ball came at me and I swung, something made the bat hit the ball and it travelled high and pretty deep to center field where it was easily caught. Our runner came in from third with our first run and the runner from 2nd advance to third. I began to run to first but was out before I got there. As I returned to the bench there were high fives waiting, I acted disappointed that I didn't get a clean hit but was secretly delighted that I made solid contact. I didn't look for Steve Greer but knew I dodged the most humiliating bullet of that day.