As I was running yesterday I was thinking about my last post and some people’s reaction to it. I got a lot of the “I could never do that” kind of comments. My response was usually that it isn’t something you can just roll out of bed one day and go do. That got me thinking about what led me to where I am today as a very amateurish athlete. So I thought I would write about that. Not that I’m some super spectacular athlete. Not that I’ve overcome extreme adversity to get where I am. Not that it is even a very interesting story. But for what it is worth…here it is.
The Early Years
At some point when I was really young I took ice skating lessons. I’m not sure if I expressed interest or if my mom just thought it would be a fun thing to do. I don’t really remember ice skating, as I was really young, but my mom has told me I was pretty good at it. Did she have dreams of me becoming a figure skater?
The Soccer Days
I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I started playing soccer. Was it in kindergarten? First grade? Not completely sure, but I remember being pretty good at it at the time. I could run fast, move pretty well, and I scored a lot of goals. And I have the trophies to prove it…at least, I think I still have them laying around somewhere. One year my team won our City Championship. I think it was 1988 or 1989. The year after that, we were a completely different team. We may have lost a few key players as they got older and moved up to the next division, but I think the rest of us just lost our discipline. The next season we hardly won a game. It was pathetic really. I was probably one of the worst offenders. I remember one particular practice where the coach wanted us to run though the park around a tree and back. I walked. Since I walked, he made me run it again. I walked it again. I’m not really sure why I did this, but I don’t think it was laziness. I was probably just getting to that age where I didn’t really want to listen to what adults told me to do anymore. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t long after that that I quit playing soccer. Some friends in school (bad influences?) had gotten me interested in baseball. So I decided to quit soccer and try baseball instead. I was still young enough to get into Little League for one season.
Baseball
When I got into baseball I knew I wanted to play catcher. I joined a team sponsored by a local market and got the catcher position. The one season I was on this team we did well, only losing one game all year. I remember playing a lot (in Little League the coaches were required to play everyone in every game) and having a good time.
The next season I was too old for Little League, so it was on to the Babe Ruth League. This would be a little different – you had to actually try out for the Babe Ruth League. I did that and was “drafted” onto a team. I again wanted to play catcher. Coach was happy to let me do this. It came in handy because he needed someone to help pitchers warmup before going into the game. The season was a complete disaster. Early on we learned hand signals the coach would use to tell us when to bunt, when to steal, etc. By the time I actually got to play in a game I had forgotten them all. When I finally got to bat he threw up all these signals. I had no idea what he wanted, so I walked over to him and he told me to bunt. The next pitch was a ball. I looked back at coach, he threw up a bunch of signals again. Having no idea what he wanted, I bunted again. I hit the ball, it was used to throw out the guy on second. But I made it to first. Then the pitcher threw me down. After the inning coach wanted to know why I bunted.
Despite that, I got on the All-Star ‘B’ team. I don’t know why – I’m guessing they put together enough teams that everyone got to play. Whatever it was, I wanted to catch. Coach wanted someone else to catch – and I thought I was better than this other guy. At one practice I tried to prove that I could do it by taking pitches from one of the coaches. He had me diving in the dirt, catching all sorts of wild throws. I thought I did a great job. At our next game, which was probably our only game, he put me in right field. I sucked at right field. I had no confidence in my ability to catch a ball that was hit out there. I almost never had to, but at one point in the game a good hitter came up, and I just knew the ball was headed my way. Sure enough it did, and I missed it. That was more or less the end of my baseball season.
Before the next season coach called and asked if I was going to play again. I told him that I didn’t really see any reason to pay to join the team so I could sit on the bench and warm up pitchers all season. That was the end of my baseball playing days. Actually, that was the end of my playing organized sports days.
