Baseball Reentry

I don't completely understand the sport of baseball, nor am I good with children. So you can imagine my surprise when I was asked to be an assistant coach for my son's Little League baseball team.

At the last practice I was told to operate the artillery pitching machine. I was also told that I should use a speed setting no greater than 6. Yawn.

After the entire team had a chance to bat, I turned the pitching machine around to face the outfield and pointed it toward the sky. The idea was to have the kids catch fly balls. They were excited. I was excited too, because I turned the speed up to 11. The machine made a sound kind of like a jet engine spinning up. Cool.

I dropped the first ball in machine. I've been to a few major league games...I have to tell you...I don't think I've ever seen baseball fly so high. The first kid to field one of these pop-flies wasn't that strong of a player. He was standing in center field waiting patiently for the ball to come down. I was kind of bored by the hang-time so without any thought, I dropped another ball in. I knew immediately that I had made a mistake.

Most of the players knew about the other ball in the air. Unfortunately the kid who was fielding the first ball was completely clueless. I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

The boy was unable to catch the first ball, which is good, because I think it would have blown the webbing out of his glove. He walked around looking for the missed ball. Meanwhile in reality-ville, the rest of the team yelling "Watch out for the second ball! There's a second ball!". I held my breath as I was watched the ball accelerate toward Mr. Oblivious. The screaming seemed to intensify as the ball approached. Just as he bent over to pick up is missed ball, ball #2 hit the ground two feet from where he was standing.

Wow. That was close.

Just as I was about drop another ball in the machine, the head coach unplugged the machine. What a wet blanket.