The "Void"

A few years back, I read an article by George F. Will that described the period between the World Series and the beginning of spring training as that time in a baseball fan's year as "the void". For all of us that have lives that revolve around high school/college ball it seems that our "void" begins with the end of the early signing period and the beginning of spring practice. That's 3 months or so... and that is a long time when you have an unsigned senior in your house!
Maybe to help pass the time, and to entertain ourselves, everyone could share a favorite story they heard or experience they had over the past season. A little humor will help us all get through the dark days of winter!
For me, the season started with renewing of a friendship with a friend from my college days. Our sons played on the same showcase team so we had many opportunities to look back at our younger days. I'll not use any names so as to protect the innocent, or more so... to protect the guilty! My buddy was recounting his experiences playing college ball in the 1970's. Funny smells coming from the back of the bus on road trips (seniors sat in the back) seemed to set the tone for his interesting freshman year. My favorite story was about the day the senior starting shortstop was struggling while playing the field... ground ball missed to his left, another ground ball waved at to his right, and finally a pop up that falls five feet in front of him... all of this in the first inning... he was having a bad day! The Coach was not happy, so after the pop up, he yells at my buddy to get in there at short. As he heads out on the field, the senior walks to the coach and says "Sorry Coach, I was hallucinating." The Coach replies "Well go hallucinate your a$$ on the bench! We can't take any more errors!"
If you didn't "experience" college in the 70's you may not appreciate this story as much as I did. Thankfully, we all grew up and can laugh at our past. Just look at the yearbooks from those days... Yikes!

 

Funnies

We've all heard the stories about tee-ballers that when the coach yelled "go home", the little fellow took off away from the field headed across the parking lot, going home. Well this story is similar except it involves 15 year olds in little league.

The situation is a runner on first with one out. A routine ground ball is hit to the 3rd baseman for what should have been a double play.

Unfortunately, my son who was catching inherited my booming voice which carries very well. He comes out from behind the plate yelling "roll-it". Hearing this, the 3rd baseman, who is actually a good ball player, reacts to the "roll-it" and makes a nice catch on the ball while moving to his left and, YES, proceeds to roll (as in, rolls the ball like a bowling ball) the ball to the 2nd baseman. Even though the ball arrives in plenty of time for the force out; this caught the 2nd baseman off guard so much (or he was laughing too hard - not sure of which) he missed the ball and we don't get an out anywhere.

Immediately the 3rd baseman realizes what he has done and simply buries his face in his glove. I'm doubt we will ever get him to believe us when we say we were laughing with him and not at him but there was nothing else anyone could do, BUT LAUGH!

 

When my son was 11, we played a USSSA tournament in Marion NC. A team we were playing had a big left-handed hitter, and we worked before the game (during the pitchers warmups) on how to issue an intentional walk if the situation called for it. When I called for it during the game (the big lefty was up), my son proceeded to put the first pitch about 2 inches behind his ear. I called time and walked to the mound. "What are you doing?" I asked. He replied "I threw it just where you told me to in warmups." I then realized that during warmups we had used a right-handed hitter and he was throwing it just where I instructed him to.

 

1st time player

The Fall season of Pony baseball 2002 was supposed to be much more of a relaxed atmosphere to better instruct young players. A young man (14)recently moved into the community and informed his mother that he would like to play baseball. This was a surprise to his mother, as he had never been on a baseball field. She explained his situation to me with great concern. The young man came to practice and performed very well considering he had never been in a game and did not know the rules. He could catch the ball, and throw well enough (if you told him where to throw it). It was odd to see an athletic kid that had never been on a baseball field.

1st game; I placed him in right field in an attempt to hide his lacking skills.
Sure enough, a fly ball was hit in to short right field. The center fielder yells (like dad and everyone else in the park) "IN, IN, IN"

The young man casually tucks his glove under his arm, and runs to the first base dugout. He thought that he was supposed to go into the dugout. I met him just as he crossed the foul line asking what was wrong, not realizing he did not understand.
He was so upset once he realized what had happened.

I have never been more proud of any of my players as when they came into the dugout after that inning. Rather than beat him up over the incident, they were very supportive and incouraged him to get back out onto the field. The young player stuck with us for the rest of the season and actually got his first hit in our last game of the season.

 

"take" a pitch

I knew a coach in like ages 9/10 or 11/12 rec LL baseball that was having trouble getting a kid to "take" a pitch when the coach signaled it.

So after much frustration and to drive home the directive, the coach sent the kid to the plate without his bat!!

 

I'm going to bump this thread where this post came fron because it is very informative, but Applejack told this story and it still cracks me up

By Applejack

What was it like for you when you lived in the minors? Do you have a favorite story?

Living in the minor leagues is no bed of roses. At the lower levels traveling was terrible. I remember once when I was in Lodi California the bus was so bad that there were times we would literally have to get off the bus and push it up the hill, no joke.
We would take turns sleeping in the luggage racks. Meal money was like 6 or 7 dollars per day.
My first year I was in Lethbridge, Alberta Canada. 19 years old, first time away from home making $600.00 per month before taxes and paying $150.00 per month to live in the basement of a family's home.
I have so many stories that I could tell but I will get around to some of them later.
My favorite places that I played in the minors were Vero Beach Florida and believe it or not Buffalo NY.
One story I will share with you is I was in big league camp with the Pirates and pitching against the Cardinals at ST.Pete.
This is when the Cards had all the speedsters in Coleman, Ozzie, Mcgee, Oquendo etc...
Coleman's on first, one out and I'm facing Ozzie. He slaps a ground ball between 1st and 2nd and instinctively when a ball is hit to a pitcher's left he habitually goes to cover 1st (force of habit).
I take 3 hard steps towards 1st when the ball goes through and I wheel to go backup the throw to 3rd because Coleman is going to try a 1st to 3rd on the single to right.
As I turn I realize I've got a lot of ground I have to make up to get into position for the backup so I'm sprinting to get there. I cross the mound and look back to see how the play is developing and to check Coleman, meanwhile, Eric Greg who is umpiring 3rd base is caught out of position is sprinting to wards me , yes his 300 plus pounds was sprinting, to get into position to make the call.
OK Greg weighs 300 + lbs and my playing weight was at 170. We're both sprinting and he's looking towards right field and I'm sprinting towards 3rd looking back and we're on a collision course.
All I can remember is him standing over me dropping sweat on me and saying these profound words, " You aight bro?" It was not pretty but I sustained the massacre and proceded to finish pitching but I have not been hit that hard since I ran into a brick wall while playing basketball in high school.

 

Did you forget something?

How many of us have been in such a hurry to get to our kids game (or our own) and left something important at home?

Road trip to Virginia- 1st round of the regional all-star tournament.
I ran out of the house in uniform, jumped in the car and took off.

My wife was extremely ill when I told her that I had left the directions to the field on my desk at home. With both my wife and I now panicking, we looked for cell numbers of any one with directions- Yep! I left them at home too.
I finally told the wife that there was no reason to worry; I am a man, I can "feel " my way there. Well, three hours later we arrived at the field; but without my training shoes. Yes, I left them at home as well.

There I was coaching third base in full uniform with my work boots on.
9 years later, I still get comments from players & a few parents about my wardrobe choice.

 

Not baseball but still funny

My son who is now 15 and strictly plays baseball was playing rec basketball at the YMCA being coached by a friend of mine at age 8 or 9. There's about 30 seconds left in the game and his team is winning by 4 or 5 points. His team gets a rebound and he dribbles over half court by the bench and my buddy the coach yells at him to "sit on it". Yep you guessed it! He put the ball on the floor in front of the bench and sat on it! Wish I had a camera because we would have won the $100k on America's Funniest Videos.