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Tag: baseball (Page 2 of 3)

Opportunities: catching a rarity.

June 24, 2011 /

Okay, I’ll admit they are not quite so rare as hitting the Powerball lottery. Not even as rare as smiles at a Tulsa City Council meeting. I was in the crowd, sitting behind home plate Thursday night when Scott Beerer came to the plate for the Drillers.

I slipped out of the bookstore a little early, hoping to take advantage of a slight break in the heat for an evening at ONEOK Field. The Arkansas Naturals were in town, but the team wasn’t as important as the chance to watch a little baseball.

Sitting directly in front of me was a young couple – 19 or 20-years old at most – making goo-goo eyes at each other and occasionally giving each other too-passionate kisses. I had to look between the tops of their conjoined heads to see the batter. My tickets were for seats five rows back from the home plate backscreen.

The Drillers already had two errors by the time the first inning was over, and they seemed to have a bead on Tulsa’s pitcher, spraying hits all over the place. Finally, in the third inning, Tulsa got back-to-back home runs from Tommy Field and Ben Paulsen – and that changed the momentum.

It isn’t every day a baseball fan gets to see back-to-back home runs at the professional level. Heck, it is pretty rare at any level. It’s fun when it’s the home team hitting them.

And then, in the fifth, the bases are loaded. As far as the game is concerned, all the team wants is a base hit – a chance to drive in some runs. The fans, and – let’s face it – the team want a grand slam.

Hitting a home run is hard enough. Opportunities to hit a home run with the bases loaded come around occasionally, but are usually squandered in trying too hard.

Thursday night, ONEOK Field, fifth inning, Scott Beerer at the plate – bases loaded. Came the pitch and the solid contact. Every one of us in the stands (except the two in front of me) knew it had a chance. It went, and went. And it was over the fence.

The first time, in all my years of watching baseball games – even on television – that I had witnessed a grand slam home run.

As I said, there are things more rare. Some things considered rare, like an eclipse of the sun, can be predicted with accuracy. Even a pitcher that completes a shutout has had the chance to do it, every time he steps on the mound.

For a batter to hit a home run, the bases have to first be loaded. And then – he has to hit the ball out over the fence.

It is a rare, rare thing.

I’m glad I was there to see it.

As for the young couple, a bit of advice: there are numerous opportunities in life to steal a kiss, or to steal a base. Chances to see a slam in person shouldn’t be squandered.

But I can’t tell him ‘I told you so…’

May 13, 2011 / / 0 Comments

He wasn’t always right, but my father was a smart fellow. He used words in conversation with me as a kid that I had to secretly look up later in his dictionary to understand what it was he meant.

That’s probably why I still remember having the answer once, when he wondered aloud on a thing.

I was seven or eight years old and we were watching a televised baseball game. During an intentional walk by the pitcher, Ray J. questioned the need to throw the pitches. Why not just send the batter down to first and forget the four consecutive pitches that no one could possibly touch with the bat?

“Maybe,” I said, “sometimes the throw goes wild.”

It’s a really clear memory for me: my tentative response, worried while he thought over my idea that some things taken for granted don’t always work out as planned.

He considered the possibility for a moment, and gave a young kid a great deal of satisfaction.

“I guess you’re right,” he admitted, and that was enough for me.

It’s taken most of forty years to back me up, but on Wednesday, LA Angels pitcher Kevin Jepsen was trying to deliver a toss for an intentional walk and sent the pitch clear to the back screen.

It was exactly the scenario I had envisioned when my father wondered aloud: there was a man on third base at the time.

Alexei Ramirez was able to score easily, and the White Sox wound up winning the game 6-4, with the Angels choking up a three-run eighth inning lead.

“I threw it about 10 feet too high,” Jepsen said. “Just sailed it. Sometimes on an intentional walk, you can take it too easy.”

In other words – the things we take for granted, don’t always work out like they should – which was exactly what I was trying to tell my dad, oh – so many years ago.

He would have known the answer anyway, had he given it a moment’s thought. Like I said, he was one smart fellow.

An Amazing Feller.

December 16, 2010 /

When he signed his first contract, he received one dollar and an autographed baseball. He went straight to the majors – no minor leagues at all. He played for Cleveland, because that’s where he wanted to play. Stayed there his whole career.

Bob Feller

Hall of Famer Bob Feller

Bob Feller lived in that era when everyone had to have a nickname, so he was Blazin’ Bob or Rapid Robert. He had a fastball learned on the Iowa farm where his family built a baseball diamond in a cornfield. He is one of only two in baseball history to strike out their age – Feller fanned 17 batters in a game when he was at that tender age. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1962, having spent his entire career with the Indians.

Bob Feller died last night, age 92. Although he enjoyed good health most of his life, he began a decline this past year, and contracted pneumonia earlier this month.

In an age when baseball players follow the dollar, rarely staying with a single team, Bob Feller is one of the last of his kind. He was a world champion, in 1948, the last time the Cleveland Indians won the pennant, shortly after he returned from serving his country during World War Two.

Baseball fans of an age will remember Bob Feller. Cleveland will never forget him. Americans should admire a man whose convictions and patriotism were never compromised as he fought like a man for his country and played with boyish spirit the game of baseball.

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