I called Coach Conde because I wanted some batting practice today. He suggested that if I would pay a few American dollars, he could organize some decent pitching. I warned him they couldn’t be professionals because I didn’t need trouble from the NCAA. So far, I’d only seen him pitch batting practice, and with all due respect, Cassidy could hit him. I told him to set it up.
Fritz, Paul, and Cassidy joined me for baseball practice. Cassidy was feeling better and told me I wasn’t getting out of
Coach Conde showed up early with two pitchers I’d not met before. One was a big lanky kid who looked to be my age or a little older. He was at least six-six, and as he warmed up, he threw some serious heat. His only problem was he was a one-trick pony whose sole pitch was a fastball. He would be perfect for the closer role, but he needed to learn to throw a changeup. Otherwise, opposing players would just learn to time his pitches and light him up. That was precisely what I did.
After I parked him three straight pitches, the tall kid started to get frustrated. Coach Conde stepped in and reminded both of us that this was batting practice. He changed the focus to situational hitting, which forced me to try to hit the ball to different locations and even to bunt.
When the kid began to tire, the other pitcher was brought in. He was much older; I would guess that he was in his late twenties or early thirties. He had command of all the pitches, a crafty veteran who set you up with his varied pitches and locations. There were times he had me tied up in knots, trying to guess what he would throw next. What he didn’t have was a commanding fastball.
Then he broke out a pitch I had never faced before: the knuckleball. I honestly didn’t think
The reason most pitchers don’t throw the knuckleball is that you really can’t control the pitch. That became evident when a couple of them hit me. He apologized, but I asked him to keep throwing them. As a hitter, the knuckleball forced me to focus. Eye-hand coordination is what separates the average from the better hitters. In baseball, the difference isn’t that much; just a few extra hits could cause your batting average to jump.
I knew that when I tried out for the Under-18 team, everyone there would be top notch. Someone had told me there were 760 high schools in my state alone. If you figured there was an average of fifteen baseball players for each school, then that was over eleven thousand kids. You had to be in the top four or five in a state our size to be invited. I would have to shine to separate myself from the other 107 participants who were already the best-of-the-best.
What I found was that when I focused hard enough, I began to drop into the zone. That was what I called the state of awareness where everything but hitting faded into the background. I did something similar when I played football. My mind would block out everything off the field, and I became hyperaware of my immediate surroundings. When that happened, my performance became much better. I discovered that I quit thinking about what I should do at the plate.
After all, as Yogi Berra purportedly said, you can’t think and hit at the same time. When I was in LA, I was given the foundation I needed for hitting. Since then, my focus was on the proper technique. That meant good base, hands back, track the ball’s release point, level swing, and the other millions of details you needed to have happen to hit the ball.
Batting against a veteran pitcher throwing knuckleballs helped me fall into the zone. It was just me and the pitcher, and I just hit; I didn’t need to think about how. I’d done this enough that the muscle memory was there. It was like throwing a football; after you did it like a bazillion times, you just did it. It was the moment I became a hitter. With the switch flipped, I saw the ball, and my body reacted.
For the next twenty minutes, it was like I couldn’t miss. The crafty veteran threw everything he had at me, and I hit it with authority.
Once we were finally done, you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I paid both pitchers the equivalent of $30 each, which made their day. Coach Conde had told them they’d earn $10. I also gave Coach Conde $40. He was much cheaper than Bo Harrington had been. Of course, they wanted to know when I would do this again. I had less than a month until I would be at the tryouts. Coach Conde assured me he could find more pitchers for me to practice with.
