Baseball

I threw a baseball today.

That may not sound like a big deal for about 99.9% of you… but it is.

I went to shoot a Millikin baseball game, well… actually just about an inning-and-a-half of one player in some sweet light for a feature story. Anyway… one of the gates was locked and no one had the keys, so I had to get to the dugout I was shooting from by walking into one, walking behind home plate to the opposite dugout. I do this in between innings since the officials, players, coaches and fans probably wouldn’t like it if I decided to walk through the middle of an active play.

The pitcher was throwing a few warm-up balls as I was walking through. One of them rolled past the catcher and hit the fence right in front of me. I looked around and saw that everyone was looking at me waiting for me to pick it up and throw it to somebody. I bent over (while maintaining perfect balance of my three cameras), picked it up and just held it for a second.

The last time I touched a baseball was something like 15-20 years ago. I was playing catch with dad in the backyard of our house. I missed the ball and got hit in the face. Twice. Dad’s visions of having a son in the majors quickly disappeared.

I honestly don’t think I have touched a baseball since that day.

I was scared to throw the ball. It would probably look like a girly throw… I was better at throwing than I was at catching, but that wasn’t saying a whole lot.

I contemplated rolling the ball… that would probably look even worse.

I finally decided to throw to an umpire about thirty feet away… perfectly. I was rather impressed with myself. I looked around quickly, expecting the dozen people braving the cold winds to be showering me with applause.

They weren’t.

Oh well… I was surprised at how much I didn’t screw up for once that I thought I would share. Tomorrow will probably be back to my boring life.