Spring......

Every year at this time I feel the pull of baseball.  I love the game and always have.  Something about the feel, the movement, the association with hot weather.  The violence.  What?  You thought it was a tame, boring game played by little kids and no one was supposed to get hurt?  Then you don't know baseball.  It is a sport of incredible risk.  And for some strange reason, I think that is one of the most attractive things about it.  Especially when the risk is debilitating injury or possibly death.  I think most players, if drunk enough, would admit that they are very much aware the risk is up there with football and bungee jumping.  In boxing you can pound someone with a gloved hand.  In baseball you can throw a very hard object at another person at 90+ MPH.  I know, I've done it.  In football, you can run into another person with a helmet and injure them.  In baseball you can club that same sphere toward other players at upwards of 140+MPH.  I know, I've done it.  I've also had both done to me as well.  I have the scar on my leg from when another player went into second base and caught me with a spike.  Rippped me good.  Thirty years later another player on another team went into second base and carved up my son's knee in a similar play.  Couldn't count all of the stitches it took to close the wound.  I accidently hit a batter in the helmet in a college game.  He went down like he was shot.  Unconcious, he was totally unaware of the melee that followed as players from his dugout poured out with bats in hand looking for revenge against the pitcher they percieved as "headhunting" their teammate.  I stood on the mound calling for the ball while my teammates came out of my dugout to meet them.  It could have been a south american soccer riot scene, but cooler heads prevailed and we managed to get the player to the hospital.  I spoke to him a year later, he didn't remember anything and held no grudge.

I've ripped and torn my elbow twice.  Different injuries.  I don't care.  I LOVE to throw a baseball.  Don't ask me why, I can't explain it.  I threw hard as a kid, good control, great curve, and nasty sinker.  I loved to hit as well.  Not much for average, but surprising power.  A few home runs here and there over my career.  Oddly enough, I was and remain one of those players that was just born with great hands.  Didn't practice much, didn't like to field the ball much either.  But the ball always stuck in my glove if I got to it.  Just one of those things.

The years have passed and I don't play anymore, but I still follow the game.  And when Spring rolls around I always get the itch to go outside and start throwing again.  Every year.  This year is different because I won't be doing that for the first time in many years.  The elbow really screams when I throw.  So does the shoulder, the back and sometimes a few other places as well.  When I swing a bat, my back always balks a bit, so do the knees and hips.  I think its time to quit.

But I still want to loosen up one more time.  Stretch out in the sun, toss a few, warm up in the bullpen and go into the game.  Aaahh, yes.  Rock back, lift my left leg up while twisting back, coiling like a spring.  Reach back and extend the arm, hands relaxed, fingers across the seams.  Balance.  Find the catcher's glove, focus, focus,...focus, concentrate....see it in my mind.  Now power up, get excited, stay focused.  Go...flex the back knee just a bit, drop and DRIVE.....hard, swing the leg downhill off the mound and plant.   Your pushing......pushing hard....the torso torqueing as your arms extend, the shoulders rotate toward the plate, the wrists tense, then relax, the foot plants and the hips rotate, pulling the arms faster and faster with the elbow leading and the forearm flattening out behind, muscles, tendons, ligaments and tissue all straining to keep up as you EXPLODE off the back foot and snap the wrist in release.  You continue forward and your arm whips around toward the ground, but you don't care.  The missile is released and you don't really care about anything else.  If you did your job it is going about 90 mph and will cover the distance to the catcher in less than 54/100 seconds, the batter will have about 32/100 seconds to find the ball and decide if he wants to swing because it will take him the rest of the time to actually swing the bat.

But I just want to pop the mitt one more time, one more time, just one more time.  God, I love this game.