|
Post by Hart's Middle Finger on Oct 5, 2021 15:32:10 GMT -5
I could see it, but I knew I was going to swing and miss or pop out to the infield. I was also fast and didn't have a ton of power so I was never swinging for the fences; I was content to hit grounders and liners.
|
|
|
Post by Fumbduckery on Oct 5, 2021 18:58:16 GMT -5
I could see it, but I knew I was going to swing and miss or pop out to the infield. I was also fast and didn't have a ton of power so I was never swinging for the fences; I was content to hit grounders and liners. Old school, I like it!
|
|
|
Post by keystone61 on Oct 5, 2021 19:05:36 GMT -5
I could see it, but I knew I was going to swing and miss or pop out to the infield. I was also fast and didn't have a ton of power so I was never swinging for the fences; I was content to hit grounders and liners. Old school, I like it! Most of us weren't old school because we wanted to be, but because we had to be! LMAO
|
|
|
Post by Hart's Middle Finger on Oct 5, 2021 19:32:20 GMT -5
I was good at several sports, not great...
... but one thing I was great at was knowing what I could and could not do and playing to my strengths.
|
|
|
Post by Fumbduckery on Oct 5, 2021 19:54:40 GMT -5
Most of us weren't old school because we wanted to be, but because we had to be! LMAO Exactly. I've mentioned before my high school baseball coach had been in the Marines and he treated us like we were in a Marine camp. Any mistakes we made in practice resulted in verbal abuse and physical punishment. He had the right approach because he worked us so hard mentally and physically in practice that we did things right. Then on game day he would give a 10 minute speech talking about how important our preparation had been, and now we needed to go out and just relax and play the game and enjoy it. He never called us down during games and it really did help us not be too uptight. You knew if you made a mistake you'd pay for it the next day, but not publicly. He really did get every bit of talent possible out of every one of us.
I hated him back then but learned to respect the heck out of him as I grew older, he gave me a great foundation to build my whole life on, and I had no direction at all prior to that. My favorite memory of him was that in practice he would stand between home plate and the mound and fungo flyballs to us in the outfield--the catcher would stand between the mound and second base, and we'd throw the ball to the catcher and he'd toss it to the coach. But one day one of the outfielders overthrew the catcher by quite a bit. Our coach was looking away, and the ball hit him right in the head on the fly, all the way from the outfield. We thought maybe it would kill him or he might kill the guy who threw it, but he never reacted at all. Like it didn't even happen. He just held his hand up in the air for the catcher to toss him another ball. After that ball had hit him in the head it bounced about 40 feet behind him, just like it had hit concrete. We were pretty stunned that day. He never said a word about it. Scared me like I had never been scared before.
|
|
|
Post by keystone61 on Oct 6, 2021 20:58:14 GMT -5
I was good at several sports, not great... ... but one thing I was great at was knowing what I could and could not do and playing to my strengths. That's the way we had to be. I knew HOW to play. I can remember thinking how good I could have been with the talent that some kids had. Oh well, such is life.
|
|