Ever since I interviewed a couple of Sinclair Tartan Pride baseball players last month, I can’t stop thinking about my glory days on Belmont High School’s junior varsity baseball team.
I originally tried out for the varsity squad, but after coach realized I had no skills and was afraid of the ball, I was quickly demoted to JV.
You might wonder if I didn’t have any skills then how did I even make the JV team? The answer is simple: we only had eight players, anybody that wanted to play could play, whether they stunk or not. And our team most definitely stunk.
During practice our team was usually more interested in throwing handfuls of dirt at each other than fielding ground balls and for some reason I never could learn how to judge a fly ball; I would always come in two steps too far resulting in the ball falling directly behind me as I shielded my face with both hands.
I was eventually switched to catcher where my ability to have kids was on the line with each and every pitch since I never wore a protective cup. I could catch and block the ball decently enough, but my throwing arm was so weak that when someone tried to steal second base, I would throw it to the pitcher so he could throw it to second, which earned me the moniker, “tank without a cannon.”
Probably the funniest thing that ever happened on that team was when my friend got pinch hit for before his first at-bat after playing in the field two hours, which inspired him to take his jersey off at home plate and shout expletives towards the coach. Our coach was use to this sort of thing so I don’t think he really minded much, but the umpire threw him out of the game anyway and made him sit in a 100 degree bus for a couple hours.
In my two years on the team, we never won a single game, but we did tie once which was just as good for me.
Even though our team stunk, I value the time I spent on it because I made some friends, got a bunch of funny stories out of it and had fun. I feel like if you spend your time having fun, then it’s always time well spent.