Baseball

Last summer, I took an internship at a prominent pharmaceuticals manufacturing company somewhere in Texas. They paid me well and paid me by the hour, offering time-and-a-half for any overtime. My boss was a really nice guy, and you could tell he was a very shy guy. You could tell he felt bad when he gave me work to do, which worked out great because I didn't want to do any work. I wanted to sit at my desk all day long doing nothing* and get paid. So that's exactly what I did...

That is until I realized I could do something productive with my time. I began researching the hell out of baseball at baseball-reference.com. I spent 8, 9, 10 hours a day just looking up each and every player I could think of, attempting to find their rightful place in history. It all started when I became curious about how many years Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb spent playing at the same time. Often people think about historical events or figures as mutually exclusive. Turns out, Cobb hated Ruth and his home-run-hitting style. I uncovered so much information and got paid. It was awesome. By the end of the summer, I had a detailed Excel spreadsheet of every great player who ever played the game. I ranked them by several different methods and finally came up with my official list, in order. It's solid. All-in-all, I'd say I spent a good 300 hours on this, and will reveal my list in my next entry.

I should supplement the story about being "productive" at work with this tidbit of information: I am a freaking baseball nut. I used to be an addict. At any given time since I was 8 and obtained a subscription to Baseball Digest (my mom supported my habit at the time), I've pretty much known too much about baseball for my own good. I really do know a lot. I'm talking about real baseball. The game and the players. I don't care about contracts, trades, or what percentage of the league is or isn't white, Latino, or African American. I don't care about too much that has happened to the sport since 1970 except for my stellar little league career that was cut short by growing pains in the ankles. I care about who's playing and how they play it. Before my first little league game, my mom told me to "be aggressive". She probably gave me this advice because I was a passive little kid who really didn't even want to play. I didn't even play the first year I was old enough. I was too scared and apathetic. However, when I stepped between the lines for the first time, something changed. After getting the meaning of the word clarified, all I thought in my head was "be aggressive". And aggressive, I was. Like everything else in life, I took a mile when I was given an inch. I was given a small piece of information ("be aggressive") and turned it into an entire playing style. A style the likes of which probably has never been seen before and will never be seen again (unless I have a son someday). I turned aggressive into maniacal (pronounced muh-nye-uh-kull not maniac-ull). Keep in mind, I'm still talking about a 7-year-old. Before going any further, I just want to let you know I'm not making this up. I have the memory of a field lark. I remember all of these things. When I first began playing, they had me at third base. This is coach's pitch, where your coach tosses you the ball under-handed. One issue is that none of the little kids want to play outfield. Right field was the worst. Left field was the second worst player on the team. The best player on the field must be your pitcher. This is because the entire game centers on fielding the ball and getting the ball back to the pitcher, who has to catch the throw and make sure he's inside of the circle where a pitcher's mound would normally be. He must be able to catch the baseball. The second best player plays first base. This is because your first baseman must also be able to catch the ball. Some teams even had the best player at first base (mostly the case when the coach's son wasn't the best player on the team and wanted to play pitcher). When you're 7 and playing baseball, there are two types of people: those who "can catch" and those who "can't catch". Those who "can" are fewer and far between and have to be utilized efficiently on the field. Well, when I was seven, I "could catch". I was capable of catching a baseball. I caught the ball when it was thrown to me. Some kids just move out of the way, some kids stick their gloves out and close their stupid eyes and most of them stiffen up and simply miss it. I caught the son of a bitch. The team I was on was the Yankees. Three kids on the team could catch: Brian, Jason, and myself. This kid Rich was pretty good, but he was white trash and was completely ignored by the coach. Brian and Jason were the assistant coaches' sons so they occupied pitcher and first base, respectively. At the time, there was much debate around coaching circles about the placement of the "third kid who can catch". You know the top two are playing pitcher and first. It really helps to have two or three extra kids who can catch so you can stick one and shortstop and one at third or second. The Yankees didn't have this luxury. So, us having 3 created somewhat of a dilemma. Where will his catching skills be most utilized? They decided to stick me at third base. It was a pretty smart choice. 7-year-olds aren't going to be throwing anyone out anyway unless it's hit to the second baseman. Some theories suggest you stick your third best "kid who can catch" at second base. However, not enough pop-ups are hit in this direction. Even a mediocre kid can field a slow-rolling baseball and toss it over to the first baseman. This is why a coach with a son who can't catch will more than likely stick him at second. Damage control. However, the kid is playing infield and gets to make plays so he won't whine too much. This was the case with the Yankees. Therefore, with studies showing that a few more little league fly balls are hit to third base than short stop, I would have to agree with the decision at the time that third base was the least poor choice to stick me. Having never played or cared about it before, I was perfectly fine where ever. I wasn't really aware that I "could catch". I just didn't want to screw up. I played two or three games at third and, by then, had worked my way up to the lead-off spot in the order (the fast kid who doesn't hit home runs but gets a hit every time). Somewhere in the middle of the third or fourth game, a light bulb went off in our coach's head. We were getting shelled by the Astros. Hit after hit was dropping in left field. This is common in little league. The coach is willing to give up this part of the field, as most kids can't hit pop ups all the way to the outfielder, and a 7-year-old's ability to catch decreases with every inch of height and distance that the ball travels. Besides, 7-year olds aren't fast and don't have the mental make-up to dive for a ball in the outfield and still make a catch. You stick your second worst player on the team there to take up space and swat flies, and leave your good players to make the easy outs when they come. That is unless your third best player is a freaking madman. That's where I came in. As I said, midway during the game, a routine fly ball was hit to our left field. Of course, he missed it (keep in mind, one of the great moments of any little league season is when your worst player on the team makes a lucky catch in the outfield. The moms love it. Your team gets an out. Everyone wins.) Our coach called time out and ran out to me at third base. The conversation went something like this:

Coach: You feeling like playing some left field for us.
Me: (Shrug and muttered the little kid "I don't know")
Coach: Good.

(Side note: You see, Coach had something up his sleeve since the first day of practice. We were taking infield at the beginning, and I was stuck at catcher. I was getting frustrated that after the infielders made plays, they would throw it to the assistant coach who would either roll it by me to the bucket or throw it to the head coach at home plate, who had a glove on one hand and a bat in the other. Throw it to me, damnit, and take your huge glove off. Finally, I had enough. The assistant coach tossed one in over my head right into the glove of Coach. When Coach looked down, my glove was inside of his with the ball resting peacefully in my glove. I had jumped up and reached back, catching the ball just before it landed in his glove. He laughed. He had his eye on me. I was a shy kid, but once it was my turn to do something, I did it all out...)

The coach called in the poor little bastard from left field and stuck him at third base. I ran out to the outfield. There were two outs. On the very next pitch, a ball was crushed right to me. I caught it. I ran to the dugout as fast as I could as the moms yelled their crazy asses off. I forgot to throw the ball back to the umpire, I was so pumped. Someone mentioned, "He doesn't want to let go of it." Like I was surprised and so happy about my catch. No, I was excited. Not at my catch, but at the ability to make people yell when you do something good. No one knew, except the coaches from practice, that I could do that. Very few balls had been hit to me up to that point.

"They thought that was good?" I thought. "I'm gonna like this shit."

For the rest of the season (until the last game), I did everything I could to dive for every ball that came anywhere near my parameters in the outfield. Oh, and I caught every last one of them. Sometimes, I would run all the way into the infield and completely lay out for a ball that was supposed to be the third baseman's. Eff him, he had his chance. I caught balls all the way in right field. I jumped the fence one time in attempt to catch a fly ball. I would run out of the way of balls that were right to me so that I could run back and dive. That's the point in my life where I officially became cocky. By the end of the season, everyone knew what was up. On the last game, the situation came to a head when Brian "went out of town" and "couldn't make it". Go figure. The Yankees needed someone to play pitcher to go above .500 on the season. It was my time now. There was a buzz all week at practices as word spread that I would be on the mound and as I was taking a few of Brian's reps during infield. When game time finally came, and I took my rightful spot in the middle of that diamond, I decided to take my game to another level. By the end of that game, my entire uniform was officially one big grass stain. My pants were tattered from a season of head-first dives, cop-style body rolls, slides at the plate and fence-climbs. After the game (which we won), as many of the fans would be seeing me for the last time (until next Spring), they were offering their congratulations on a fine game at pitcher. Things like "Well, I guess we didn't need Brian!" and "You did a great job." My favorite one, however, was when Jason's dad came up to me, put his arm on my shoulder and said, "You should have been playing pitcher the whole season." No hard feelings. Hearing these things was worth it. Besides, it felt really good as I answered each of these comments with "I know."

*In the early stages of the internship, I went so far as to set up an elaborate and detailed Excel spreadsheet which included things like my time in to work, my time out, what I did that day (usually N/A was filled in to this cell) and it calculated how much money I was earning in real time, right down to the penny. It was awesome. Some days I literally sat there, chuckling, and typed in the minutes as they went by, watching the total earnings cell go up. The spreadsheet accounted for time over 40 hours for the week. Typing those minutes in were the most fun.