Whenever I have a baseball coach’s clinic, I begin with a trivia question, “Who caught the last ball that Carl Yastrzemski ever hit in a major league game?” Not one person has ever answered correctly; until I gave them the hint, “The answer is so obvious, like it is right in front of you.” Every once in a while the “average Joe” (Jack Perconte) gets touched by “greatness” (Carl Yastrzemski). For the young coaches in the audience, I remind them that Yaz was the last player to win the Triple Crown, the league leader in homeruns, RBIs and batting average. What a great achievement, and that Yaz is the last player to do it over 40 years ago, speaks to its remarkable nature. Not to be outdone, I believe I had my own triple crown that year (1967) in little league - league leader in walks, bloop singles and stolen bases. I do not believe anyone could have predicted that 16 years later these two Triple Crown titans would meet in the big leagues. To think that I would be a small footnote in Yaz’s career makes me proud to this day.<\/p>\n
Here is how it went down, as the ball went up. I happened to get the start at second base on the last game of the 1983 season for Yaz’s final game. The whole weekend was an experience I will never forget. Fenway Park was electric the entire weekend with rhythmic chants of “Carl Yastrzemski” being sung often. What a feeling that must be to have a packed stadium reciting your name in unison. Just being there to hear and see such a tribute was awesome. I cannot remember what inning it was that Yaz came to bat but it was obvious it was to be his last major league at-bat. Our pitcher, being somewhat nervous I am sure, fell behind 3 & 0. Nobody wanted to see Yaz walk in his final at-bat, including Yaz. On the next pitch, Yaz helped the pitcher out by swinging at the obvious ball 4; but that is what the greats do, they rise to the occasion. The ball rose straight up to me at second base. I caught it and flipped it in so the ball could be saved for history.<\/p>\n
So what does Chad Ochocinco have to do with this story? All of these years I have been thinking of things I could have done with the ball after the “great” catch. Maybe I could have had an extra ball in my pocket and made a quick switch before giving the ball up. I believe the best idea may have come from one of Ochocinco’s questionable but entertaining touchdown displays. I could have had a pen in my pocket and signed the ball “To Yaz, Best Wishes, from Perco.” Then at least, somebody would know the answer to the trivia question and I could have been remembered with one of those cool nicknames that everyone knows, like Yaz, Perco and Ocho.<\/p>\n
Former major leaguer Jack Perconte is the author of <\/em>The Making of a Hitter (http:\/\/jackperconte.com<\/a>) and has a baseball instruction blog that can be found at www.baseballcoachingtips.netl<\/a>. He has recently published his second book <\/em>Raising an Athlete: How to Instill Confidence, Build Skills and Inspire a Love of Sport <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whenever I have a baseball coach’s clinic, I begin with a trivia question, “Who caught the last ball that Carl Yastrzemski ever hit in a major league game?” Not one person has ever answered correctly; until I gave them the hint, “The answer is so obvious, like it is right in front of you.” Every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rambling-on-about-my-glory-days"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}