You can touch a Hot Stove, just not for very long (Baseball thread)

[Thermofusion]

Man I played left field one year way early on, I think during coach-pitch, and I can definitely relate to mccabe's lapses of concentration. I would watch bees and shit. But from 3rd grade until I stopped playing in 8th grade I played 2nd, so I also have Josh-like recollections of left fielders underthrowing and overthrowing the cutoff man (me). I remember one year we had two left fielders who alternated: one had an arm like a cannon, who often had me leaping in the air just to make the cutoff catch. The alternate left fielder, though, had an arm like overcooked spaghetti and as soon as he motioned to throw the ball, the shortstop would generally already be on his way into the outfield grass so he could catch it and relay it to me. To cutoff the cutoff. That was 4th grade I think.

Anyway I guess the best year was 5th grade, when my family moved to what was then still a sleepy little farm town called Huntersville (at the time it was 3,000 people; a couple decades later it's 46,000 people and an overstuffed bedroom community for Charlotte commuters). Huntersville's biggest claim to fame was being the birthplace of Hoyt Wilhelm, who played baseball there through high school. My dad had gone to high school in Huntersville, and his baseball team had gone to the state championship, and somewhere in the madness of all that he 1) got to meet Hoyt Wilhelm and 2) Hoyt gave my dad a personal 30 minute lesson on the basic mechanics of throwing a knuckleball. Which, decades later, my dad passed on to me.

So, 5th grade, playing for Huntersville, I'm starting 2nd base and on days that the alternate is starting, I'm in the bullpen as a reliever. My dad had just shown me the knuckleball, and I'd then started working privately on the knuckler with our catcher, and we were planning to secretly unveil it during a game much in the same spirit mischievous kids would execute a prank. So, one game I get called in to relieve late when we have a pretty good lead (I wasn't a particularly great pitcher). I face the first batter and I think we get him out on a grounder, then after the first strike on the second batter our catcher gives me the agreed-upon knuckleball signal: wiggling his middle finger around (we were immature). So I throw my version of the knuckleball, which is a painfully slow, high arc that probably goes ten feet in the air and takes an hour to get to the plate, all done with a ridiculous "pushing" motion that looks more like a dude trying to throw a shotput than a baseball. But it's a pitch I practiced enough to somehow get it to drop right down into the strike zone. Anyway, the batter just steps back and looks at it, and the umpire (grizzled old dude who'd umped in Huntersville for decades) takes forever before begrudgingly calling a strike. So I throw another one, and the kid in the box takes a huge swing and misses in ridiculous fashion, and the ancient ump slowly creaks up out of his crouch, calls time and approaches me on the mound. Here's basically how the conversation goes:

"Son you can't do that."

Do what?

"Throw knuckleballs"

I'm not allowed to?

"I'm not gonna allow it. Kid, I'm 75 years old and I've been doing this since I was thirty. Do you have any idea how many little Huntersville brats trying to pretend they're Hoyt Wilhelm I've had to deal with over the years? My eyes are too old to keep up with this crap. Stop it."

And he trotted back to the plate, and after only throwing two of them that was the end of my knuckleball throwing career.

Other thing about my 5th grade team: we won the championship that year. By the end of the season, even though we were doing really awesome, I was batting terribly, something like .195 or .200. I was really down in the dumps about it. Our assistant coach would give us updated printouts of our batting averages the first practice after each game and mind kept dropping and dropping. And it led to some pretty bad ribbing from my teammates. By the playoffs I was pretty much ready to quit, dreading going to practice, dreading going to games.

THEN in the semi-final, against a team that had crushed us earlier that year, it's the 8th inning, we've got loaded bases, we're down by two runs, one out on us with the bad part of our lineup coming up (myself included) and I'm stepping up to bat. Like, the other kids on my team and even some of the parents were audibly groaning in dread. After not hitting anything for, like, a month, I swing late on a low pitch and knock the fuck out of it, deep into right field. Turn it into a triple. Probably would've been an inside homer had the third base coach not stopped me. Get knocked into home a couple batters later, and the whole team is slapping me on the back, high-fiving me, my parents (who went on to separate and divorce not long after) were in the stands hugging and crying. I didn't really have any moments of glory playing baseball or any other sport when I was younger. Mostly I settled for moments of efficient non-mediocrity, like fielding a hard grounder cleanly and tossing the guy out. Like, that was my bar for success. But THAT was an exception.

We went on to win the championship in the next game. Here's me holding my trophy:



Man I have other anecdotes but that turned out long. Oops!

[El_Josharino]

That knuckleball story is GOLD.

[El_Josharino]

So in the sandlot world, somehow, none of us ever got that good at pitching. We all pitched, because someone had to, and we tried to throw pitches, but usually they were just thrown balls that spun a bit in some direction and didn't actually do anything. (Sometimes we'd try to emulate big leaguers, to horrendous results. The short time I tried to wind up like Hideo Nomo wasn't good for anybody.) As a result, there weren't many strikeouts (aside from some of the kids who played who really just couldn't have hit a beach ball off of a tee anyway) and unintentional-intentional walks were so common that we created a rule that if you got walked you could opt to take a fresh count instead of walking. We also were always short on players. We made an art form of the 4 on 4 baseball game with one all-time pitcher that became necessary on the many occasions when only 9 people could play. As a result of these things, there was a lot of hitting in the sandlot.
The other thing about this story is that part of our routine was that after we'd tired ourselves out playing ball, we'd bike across town to the sports card shop, buy a bunch of baseball cards, and then meet up and trade.
My friend Phil was the best hitter, really the best athlete among us. He was a dead pull hitter, always going right down the third base line, but was fast enough to beat out grounders, and managed to go to a just different enough part of left field that you couldn't set up in one spot and just wait for the fly ball to hit your glove. He was the first one among us to hit a home run on the field where we played. And that dude NEVER struck out.

So on this one fateful day, I was pitching. I was trying to throw my slider with a slightly different grip than usual, and about 1 in 6 of them was actually maybe kind of moving, but missing the strike zone by a fair bit in doing so (better results than usual). Phil stepped to the plate and I toed the rubber. I threw something, probably my crappy splitter (a byproduct of the Nomo thing), and he fouled it off. Went to the slider, and holy crap it worked. It started down the middle and dived down and outside and Phil chased it! Strike 2! Fuck it, we'll throw it again. This time it started inside and ended up low across the middle of the plate. Another swing and miss! Holy shit. I struck Phil out and my slider actually worked. He looked at me and said, "You will NEVER do that again." He walked back to the dugout and mumbled something like, "I'd bet all of my cards that he can't do that again," which was of course promptly relayed to me. I laughed, knowing that of course I'd never do that again.
So an inning or two later, I'm pitching to Phil again. Fuck it, I thought. Slider. Swing and a miss. Strike one. I started getting sassy. "Boy, you're sure having trouble with my slider today!" "Yeah, throw it again, asshole." I did. Swing and a miss. Strike two. "One more time?" He didn't even respond. But of course I threw it again. It started right at him, and dove toward the inside corner.
A swing


and a miss!

Hot damn! "Looks like you're trading me all your cards for my slider, buddy!" "Shut the hell up!" I could just laugh. He didn't give me his cards, and I didn't expect him too anyway. My slider went back to being the garbage that it truly was after that day, and I'm sure Phil knocked it out of the park on the regular.

[Thermofusion]

Haha, excellent story. If I've ever thrown a slider in my life, it was wholly accidental. That was definitely a pitch that wasn't getting thrown in any of the leagues I played in, which makes it all the more impressive that you had one under your command, if only for a day.

Also this

we created a rule that if you got walked you could opt to take a fresh count instead of walking

has me thinking of the hilarious implications of a bizarro baseball league where this is an accepted rule. Sure your batter just got walked and that's nice and all but hey maybe he can roll the dice on a new count and try for a double instead...that pitcher's looking kinda tired, after all

[davy]

My best year was 6th grade, I think? Started at shortstop for the Indians and batted third. Got like two or three hits a game, but the coach put his son on the All-Star team ahead of me. Fucker. I was an "alternate." Anyway, we won the championship that year so it was good times.

[El_Josharino]

Man, I only played on one winning team ever, it was my first year playing little league in 5th grade or so. I played for the Royals and we played the Red Sox in the championship game and lost. We had this great big dude on our team named Freddie. He threw way faster than any other pitcher in the league, and could hit a bit too. He hit 4 homers in one game, and threw a no-hitter in another. He basically carried us  That was also where I met a dude named Rocky that I eventually became pretty good friends with. He was easily the hardest working dude I've played with. In high school he started smoking a lot of weed, and then went to the army, and settled down back in his hometown of about 300 people.

The next 2 years I played for the Rams and we were mediocre one year and then bad the next. My last year playing organized ball was my freshman year and I played for the local legion team. Our fielding was just okay, our hitting wasn't very good, and our pitching was terrible. We were 0-24 that year. Only 2 of those games weren't called early due to the mercy rule. It was a long season, but luckily we had a lot of fun dudes on that team, and goofing around was really the thing that kept us going.

[mountmccabe]

That knuckleball story is GOLD.

Yeah, seriously

[Dick]

I bet if I dug around I could find a copy of that little league baseball card they made with me looking goofy on the front and my stats on the back all dot matrix printed out.

[YojimboMonkey]

I love these stories

When I get to my mom's next weekend I'll photograph or scan the photograph of me in a little league uniform (I think it was the Dodgers? I was on several different teams in my time) that I know she has on a shelf in her living room

I remember that year though, or at least I think it was that year, my team wasn't very good but it got toward the end of the season and we started heating up. I was playing left field that year, and the coach's son (who wasn't very good--and I wasn't either really but I was confident, whereas he was easily distracted and afraid of the ball) was in center. Our last game, we played a team that had been undefeated all season. Which is weird in baseball but it was little league you know? But we were playing them hard and we went into the last inning a run up. It got down to 2 outs, 1 runner on 3rd, and a pretty good hitter up to bat. He slammed a pretty good one into left center and I could see that the coach's son was not in position to get it so I ran after it. They called it a diving catch in the paper (and for real, that shit got in the paper I don't know why) but it was more like I was running like hell and had to lean waaaaaay forward to get it and kind of stumbled and rolled after I caught it. But I caught it, game over, and literally I got carried off the field by my teammates and coach which was so fucking movie perfect that I just couldn't handle it and started crying. Which made everyone pretty disgusted with me, so back to square one I guess. But it was a great moment.

Also later, when I was in 6th grade, I had like a .600+ batting average, which was something like 75% triples. Because I couldn't run worth a damn and there were no home run fences on any of the fields we played on, so dudes could always chase the ball down and catch me.

[YojimboMonkey]

Mom was online and scanned it for me. The weird shape is on account of how it was attached to a carved wooden block for some reason.

[Thermofusion]

Shit, Jim, diving catches, getting carried off the field, .600+ batting average. Fuckin' baller! Awesome picture too.

I bet if I dug around I could find a copy of that little league baseball card they made with me looking goofy on the front and my stats on the back all dot matrix printed out.

I can't remember if it was coach pitch or the first year of real pitch, but we totally had these, too. Some kind of framed thing like "MVP 1990" with your picture on the front side, grey dot matrix stats on the back, hometown, height, weight, handedness, etc.

[YojimboMonkey]

My brother is not on this board but Mom found his picture from back then too and a couple of you know him from Xbox Live and such so bang




he looks way more serious than I do

[Thermofusion]

That's a mean look in your bro's eye!

[davy]

Also later, when I was in 6th grade, I had like a .600+ batting average, which was something like 75% triples. Because I couldn't run worth a damn and there were no home run fences on any of the fields we played on, so dudes could always chase the ball down and catch me.

Awesome.

[Thermofusion]

via BLS, video of the finished Marlins' Dinger Machine in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJqm8ybv4Uw

from the comments:

There isn't enough cocaine in the world to make sense of this.

THE DINGER MACHINE IS CIVILIZATION

[YojimboMonkey]

The year of the triples, the most memorable one was this

If you look at the layout of this park as pulled from Google Maps



You can kind of see up in the northeast corner where the infield used to be. I don't know when they moved it, and I hope it didn't have anything to do with this.

You can also see sort of toward the south central area of the west half of the park, there's some playground equipment. That used to be up in the central open area, east of the tennis courts.

I always had kind of a slow swing I guess--powerful, but just behind the ball, so though you'd usually expect a right-handed power hitter to be whacking them toward left field, mine usually ended up in right or right-center. So on this day, we were playing in this park, and I cracked one, started running, and a second later was stopped in my tracks by a huge CRUNCH and mad jingling of chains. The ball had landed smack in the center of a swing on the other side of the park. An unoccupied one, thankfully. Anyway I kept running and the fielder ran after it and as usual they relayed the ball back and stopped me at 3rd base. But for a second we'd all been stunned into immobility 'cause that shit was LOUD.

[davy]

Is there going to be any LPTJ fantasy baseball league this year?

[Thermofusion]

I would definitely play, even if it's just three or four of us. Whereabouts is RavingLunatic these days?

Other news:

Magic Johnson buys the Dodgers for $2B. Frank McCourt continues to look like the world's savviest idiot savant. I love this country.

Man also I had no idea opening day was in Japan this year. Oops! Looks like I could catch most of Game 2 tomorrow if I get up at 5 AM.

mlb.tv is on Xbox now, guess it's time to take that thing out of mothballs

RBC is a shitty bank (lol Canadians) and got bought out by PNC, which means I have PNC in my town now and can get a Pirates Check Card and get outfield box tickets for $10 off. As if I needed any more reason to finally ditch BofA.

Also scooped up some tickets for a few Myrtle Beach Pelicans games next month, as they're only a 45 minute drive across the state line and have dirt-cheap beer. Mainly I want to check out Jurickson Profar, as it looks like the Rangers will make him play at least half the season down there before moving him up to AA.

[El_Josharino]

We haven't done one before, I think I suggested it a couple seasons ago but there weren't many people interested. The fantasy baseball season is a long and grueling one. It also could be tricky at this point since the regular season technically kind of started this morning with the As/Mariners game in Japan. But if enough people want to do it (probably at least 8 or else it's pretty ridiculous), I can throw something together.

[El_Josharino]

I would definitely play, even if it's just three or four of us. Whereabouts is RavingLunatic these days?

Other news:

Magic Johnson buys the Dodgers for $2B. Frank McCourt continues to look like the world's savviest idiot savant. I love this country.

Man also I had no idea opening day was in Japan this year. Oops! Looks like I could catch most of Game 2 tomorrow if I get up at 5 AM.

mlb.tv is on Xbox now, guess it's time to take that thing out of mothballs

RBC is a shitty bank (lol Canadians) and got bought out by PNC, which means I have PNC in my town now and can get a Pirates Check Card and get outfield box tickets for $10 off. As if I needed any more reason to finally ditch BofA.

Also scooped up some tickets for a few Myrtle Beach Pelicans games next month, as they're only a 45 minute drive across the state line and have dirt-cheap beer. Mainly I want to check out Jurickson Profar, as it looks like the Rangers will make him play at least half the season down there before moving him up to AA.

Yeah, McCount bought the Dodgers for what, 500m? Fucked them up and sold them for 2B? We should all be able to fail so successfully. Although I suppose 1B of that will end up with the missus. I'm confused as to how they're worth that much. Just a year ago the Cubs were only worth 800m and now 2.5x that for the Dodgers? Weird. Either way, start making welcom to LA banners for Cole Hamels, Joey Votto, and maybe Matt Cain and Mike Napoli...

Profar is starting in Single A? Man, I figured he was farther along than that by now. He's been a hot commodity in my 2 dynasty leagues... When they push him up to AAA, I should be able to catch him when Round Rock comes to Omaha.

[Thermofusion]

Yeah, 2B seems excessive as hell, especially for a team that's faded so much in a market where (as far as I've read, anyway) the Angels now possess all the cultural cachet. The Dodgers have their storied history, were once the league's western tentpole and it would certainly be healthy for baseball if they became competitive again...but yeah that's a lot of damn cash to spend on history and potential, 'cause you're certainly not deriving $2B in value from the Dodgers' current state of affairs.

I read an interview with the Rangers' GM of Minor League Operations and he said they wanted to get him up to AA this season, but implied they'd start him in Myrtle Beach and move him up to Frisco later this summer. Apparently he's the Real Deal! Great name, too.

[El_Josharino]

Yeah, a lot of lists have him among the top 5 prospects in baseball, just behind the big guns, Matt Moore, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Julio Teheran, none of whom will be prospects for much longer.

[distance]

$2b.  how the fuck?
absolutely retarded.

[Thermofusion]

Economists weigh in on the Dodgers deal

One of the biggest problems economists had with the deal was that McCourt would still control half of the land surrounding Dodger Stadium, including its parking lots, and would be involved with potential real estate projects on the property in the future. Considering many Dodgers fans refused to go to games last year because they did not want to give McCourt their money, the new ownership's inability to completely cut ties with him was viewed as a failure.

"I still don't understand how you could pay $2 billion for the Dodgers and not get the clear title to the Chavez Ravine land," Rosentraub said. "Look at everybody who has ever been a partner with McCourt. I think they would tell you to get stock in Gaviscon because you're going to need it. Maybe he'll have a life-changing experience but you have a guy with a track record of getting into legal action with his partners on deals going back more than a decade. You may end up spending a great deal of time in court and paying legal fees against your new partner. I don't get that one. I know people who backed out of the deal because they didn't want any kind of partnership with him."

"It's problematic," Zimbalist said. "He was looking for some kind of ongoing income stream and he got it. Here's a guy who borrowed practically all the money to buy the team for $430 million and now he's selling it for $2.15 billion and he's coming out with a healthy capital gain -- it's repulsive. This is someone who doesn't deserve to walk away with a healthy profit after eight years of running the Dodgers in the most egregious, the most inefficient, the most self-interested, and the most vainglorious, idiotic way possible. It really is repulsive that he will still be making a profit in some way."

[mountmccabe]

The Dodgers had four sons of former Major League ballplayers on their 40-man roster => $2B