It’s already March, believe it or not, and that was with February being a day longer.
March, to me, has always had one very important meaning – the start of the baseball season. Well, at least for the Major Leagues. I think it’s going to be a while yet before the local teams take the field.
Baseball was a sport I always enjoyed, both watching and playing. One of the main things was you didn’t have to have a specific body type to play baseball. I remember reading a quote from a baseball manager some years ago: “To play basketball these days, you need to be seven feet tall. To play football, you need to be seven feet wide. Baseball doesn’t have any requirements.”
In what other sport can you have players like Randy Johnson at six-foot-11 or Frank Howard, who was six-foot-seven and weighed 260 pounds, and also have players like Freddie Patek at five-foot-five or Jose Altuve at five-foot-six.
One thing all of them have in common? Being named to play in the All-Star Game at least once in their career. I have seen photos of Patek standing next to Howard during a game, and it does look strange, but realizing they were both able to play the game at such different sizes made me happy.
Obviously, they played the game differently. Patek was a very good fielder who did the little things well. He laid down sacrifice bunts, he played hit-and-run ball, he stole bases. Howard basically waited for the pitcher to put a ball where he could hit it, and then he did – a long way.
Howard hit 20 home runs or more 10 times in his career, and stole eight bases. Patek never hit more than six homeruns in a season, and stole 20 or more bases eight times. Both of them were valuable pieces to their teams.
My baseball career was not quite as stellar as either of them. My highlight came the day I was on second base in the bottom of the last inning in a tie game. The batter took a big swing and squibbed the ball up the first base line.
The first baseman waited for the ball to roll foul. I started running.
The batter slowed up running to first base. The first baseman waited for the ball to roll foul. I kept running.
The ball stayed fair. The first baseman picked it up and stepped on first base to retire the batter. I kept running, and crossed home with the winning run while everyone was still watching what had happened at first base.
Quick reminder: Get up at 2 a.m. next Tuesday to set your clocks ahead an hour. OK, you don’t have to get up at 2 a.m., but don’t forget to change the clocks.