Well, we’re into the second half of the baseball season, now, and from the perspective of most of the folks in my immediate family, we’re still having a pretty good baseball summer around here. At least, it’s a good baseball summer in the sense that the teams that we like still seem to be doing okay; not in the sense that any of us have made it to many games. The Detroit Tigers are still in first, although after watching them play, it’s not entirely clear how that’s happened. They’ve got to get their offense together before anyone considers them to be a pretty good ball club, really. Over in the senior circuit, the Giants – my dad’s team – were second in their division up until just a few days ago. Although I don’t think anyone expects that they’ll be able to catch the Dodgers, they’ve got a pretty good shot at winning the wild card. We’ll see.
The only real downside of the entire season, so far, is that the Yankees are in first place, but nearly all of us around here are still all hoping that will pass. (In that division, most of us down here are pulling for Tampa Bay, even though they’re a long shot, at this point. We’ll also settle for Boston. I think it’ll take at least a few more generations, though, before your average Alabamian can pull for any team called the Yankees.)
*****
It’s about this point in the summer – this is a yearly event, just after the All-Star break – where I start to seriously contemplate the completely irrational belief that I could have been pitching in the major leagues if life had just been a little bit different. Most baseball fans, I suspect, will identify with this belief more than most of us are probably comfortable admitting in public. The majority of us blame the situation on a shoulder injury, a coach that didn’t like us, or the bad luck to perform poorly in front of scouts – otherwise, obviously, all of us would have made it all the way to the majors. Personally, my excuse is that I should have gone to a high school with a better baseball program. If this had happened, I’d probably be sitting in someone’s bullpen right now, chewing big wads of bubble gum and waiting for the starting pitching to collapse.
This belief is, of course, completely and utterly ridiculous, and yet I’ve found that it’s a belief that I’m almost entirely unwilling to give up. I would guess that until the time I’m in my mid-forties, I will still, on some deeply subconscious (and completely idiotic) level, believe that I’ve still got a shot at this. If I just go out in the backyard and throw a couple times a week, hit the gym on a more regular basis, and seek out the advice of local high school coaches, I’ll have a pretty good chance of being able to walk onto a team sometime early the following spring.
Of course, it’s much easier being an athlete in my mind than it is in reality, and my being able to confuse the two only lasts as long as I’m in a different zip code than anyone that has actually seen me pitch. Delusions of athleticism are also difficult to maintain when I recall that the last couple times that I pulled a muscle, it was a muscle in my neck, which I pulled when I was yawning too enthusiastically. Still, eternal optimist that I am, I can’t help but notice that it wasn’t like I pulled a muscle in my throwing arm. I mean, that would have been bad, right? The arm’s fine. Really.
These happy delusions are further encouraged by the fact that I live in a town with a minor league team – specifically, the Huntsville Stars, for those of you that aren’t local to the North Alabama area. Minor league ball typically means smaller stadiums that are never very full, tickets that are never very expensive, and star players that no one has heard of.
Still, the overall quality is quite a bargain for the price – the players are good enough that watching minor league ball is, by and large, entirely enjoyable – I’ll take good seats at a minor league game over upper deck seats at most major league parks, especially when considering how much the tickets in both places actually cost. Also, it’s much more fun to yell insulting things at the umpire and have him actually be able to hear you. I’ve sat behind a few fans that wrote down the umpires’ names when they were announced before the game, as to be able to harass all of them personally. Last year, I sat a few rows behind a guy that would yell “We respectfully disagree” at the umpire whenever there was a (perceived) bad call. It was the most polite harassment any of us had ever heard, presumably including the umpire, who started laughing the first time that this happened.
All that to say: minor league baseball is great. The only problem, though – at least from the standpoint of the ability of my mind to grasp objective reality – is that without the trappings of a major league stadium and the accompanying paraphernalia, it’s quite bit easier for my mind to convince itself that I could fit right in with the players on the field. This is less of a problem when watching major league baseball, at least in my mind. I’m not entirely sure why.
Honestly, though, it’s taken me awhile to realize that just because I’m watching a minor league baseball game, this doesn’t make the attitude of “Hey, I bet I can do this” any less ridiculous. The fact is, I’m never going to make it even to the minors, and when I finally realized this, I did what thousands of nostalgic baseball fans do every year when it finally penetrates their thick skulls that they are never going to play professionally: I joined a softball team.
This isn’t really a serious softball team, in the sense that everyone on the team has matching pants, is willing to slide while baserunning, or even knows all the rules about tagging up when there’s a fly ball. And if one of the outfielders forgot to bring Gatorade, and instead only brought beer, it’s not like anyone would want our forgetful teammate to go thirsty, unless, of course, he did not bring enough to share. On the other hand, though, to show our dedication, we draw the line at drinking the beer while actually playing in the game. (Unless, of course, we’re talking about someone that is playing right field, in which case it would be okay. Let’s face it: there is nothing else to do out there.)
The situation with the refreshment seemed quite a change from any sporting even that I’d been involved with before, but I only became deeply suspicious when I figured out that they also let women on the team. Now, I consider myself to be a fairly progressive guy, and I have no problem with women being, oh, the President of the United States, the Speaker of the House, or even having some sort of important job like being a gourmet chef. It’s also not a question of athleticism - I’ve been passed by enough women joggers to realize that many of them are in better shape than I am.
But a woman playing second base? I mean, I’m just not sure I would trust her priorities: as Dave Barry put it, if a woman was offered a choice between, oh, catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, I doubt if she’d even stop to consider if there was a runner on base.
Women on the team notwithstanding, softball is still the perfect sport for maintaining my deeply treasured misconceptions of my own baseball skill, for various reasons:
When I repeatedly demonstrate that I’m not that good at softball, it’s perfectly possible to convince myself that the problem isn’t that I’m not good at baseball, but that I’m not good at softball. Obviously, if the ball was smaller, everything would be easier, but only for me. Messing up on the softball field can be done safely, as it doesn’t interfere with my carefully constructed delusion that I’m a competent baseball player. On the other hand, on the rare occasion that I do something that’s impressive, it’s easy to associate that with I deem to be my obviously superior baseball skill.
The same sort of logic also applies if beer has been used instead of Gatorade: obviously, any skill at this point just demonstrates that I’m good enough to play competently after a beer. On the other hand, any errors can be blamed on the beer – obviously, it’s not due to any lack of skill on the diamond. If I hadn’t had the beer, it’s a no-brainer that I could have made that play, whatever it was.
Softball, when approached with this sort of attitude, is a win-win sort of situation. Except, of course, from the standpoint of curing me of my delusions. To do that, I’m learning, may take more than a sport.
I’m guessing, honestly, that the best cure for this is time. A few years ago, I realized that a disturbingly high percentage of the players that I see are younger than I am, which was a completely unexpected realization that wasn’t really all that pleasant. On average, I guess, the age of the players that I watch has stayed more or less the same, while my age, on the other hand, has not. Still, I’ve fond, even as I’ve gotten older – and as I continually bump up against the reality that I’m never going to play baseball professionally – this realization hasn’t decreased my enjoyment of watching the sport, which bodes well for my ability to continue to enjoy baseball in the future. I’ll keep following the Tigers, and I’ll probably be cheering for the local minor league team for a long time, no matter where I live.
Nostalgia, as Yogi Berra observed, ain’t what it used to be. Most of the time, Yogi’s right about this sort of thing. But give me good seats at a minor league stadium, on a night when the weather’s nice, and the home team comes from behind to win it, and then nostalgia – just sometimes – is everything that it’s cracked up to be.
Even for those of us that are only watching.
I. feel. you.
I played semi-pro at the end of my high school career. Leaving baseball was the hardest thing I’ve done. I disappointed a lot of people close to me. It caused a divide.
I can do nothing as well today as I played baseball. I miss it dearly. I dream about playing at least once a week. Years ago I would dream several times a week about playing.
It is so hard to walk past the baseball section in Dick’s without being incredibly tempted to buy baseball gear. And watching a high school or college leve baseball game is super tough. I am finally to the point where I don’t get choked up when I watch those games.
I still have this belief back in my head that I will one day walk onto an SEC baseball team and play…as a 40 year old pitcher.
Interestingly, I’ve probably learned more about throwing harder after I quit playing than while I was coached and played. Physical therapy and disc golf has taught me how to throw harder. Knowing what I know now, I could probably throw 5 MPH faster. Also, while weak, I am a lot stronger now that I was then, so I believe I can throw it 10 MPH faster.
So basically, I have a huge ego and think I should be playing for the Pirates in a few years.
After softball comes Wiffleball. It’s a slippery slope.
I’ve actually been thinking about getting a long toss partner to work on my shoulder.
Eric, I’d be happy to help with that.