{"id":947,"date":"2009-01-31T11:53:30","date_gmt":"2009-01-31T18:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/31\/everything-that-was-supposed-to-move-didnt\/"},"modified":"2009-03-18T20:17:04","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T03:17:04","slug":"everything-that-was-supposed-to-move-didnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/31\/everything-that-was-supposed-to-move-didnt\/","title":{"rendered":"“Everything That Was Supposed to Move Didn’t”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00c2\u00a0As I plodded through a St. Louis winter flurry, trudged into the gym alight with a low orange glow, and began to run my ten laps upon the rubber track surrounding the three basketball courts that comprised our winter practice area, I felt the cheeseburgers cooked on the Foreman Grill, the countless hot wings, and at least one beer start to stir in the pit of my stomach.\u00c2\u00a0 One thought raced through my mind: Please God, let me get through this practice without throwing up.<\/em><\/p>\n

For as long as I had been a part of the Washington University in St. Louis Division III baseball program, the threat had always been there.\u00c2\u00a0 You never know<\/em>, coach would say, we might have practice on Sunday<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 We would respond, but coach, the Super Bowl is Sunday<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d kind of chuckle to himself, you never know<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 This year, the hammer dropped.\u00c2\u00a0 Word had come down that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be starting practice at 8 pm on Super Bowl Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 We begged, we pleaded, we demanded that our captains do something.\u00c2\u00a0 It was all in vain.\u00c2\u00a0 Forget the social aspects of a Super Bowl party, coach figured that by 8, the game would be mostly over; football season would be over; and we would have shifted our focus back to baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 As I plodded through a St. Louis winter flurry, trudged into the gym alight with a low orange glow, and began to run my ten laps upon the rubber track surrounding the three basketball courts that comprised our winter practice area, I felt the cheeseburgers cooked on the Foreman Grill, the countless hot wings, and at least one beer start to stir in the pit of my stomach.\u00c2\u00a0 One thought raced through my mind: Please God, let me get through this practice without throwing up<\/em>.<\/p>\n

At WUSTL, in order to fit forty or more games into mostly Friday, Saturday, and Sunday doubleheaders, the game schedule typically runs from late February to early May.\u00c2\u00a0 In St. Louis, however, winters rarely end by February 28.\u00c2\u00a0 When we returned from winter break in mid-January, team practices would start up in full force, but barring a miracle of Global Warming we would be relegated to training indoors.\u00c2\u00a0 Last summer, I wrote a piece describing the unique character of a typical Division III team<\/a>, but our winter practices possessed a quality all to themselves.<\/p>\n

Upon walking into the gym that, from 12 pm to 3 pm on weekdays and from 8 pm to 10:30 pm on Sundays, transformed from basketball courts and an indoor track into a baseball training facility, one thought always jumped to the front of the pack: between the yellow lighting and somewhat off white paint, aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the walls the same color as the ball?\u00c2\u00a0 Those first practices always arrived with the unmistakable energy of anticipation.\u00c2\u00a0 A new season was beginning, whatever happened the year before now lived solely in the past.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone standing under that orange light, trying to shoo away the professor dressed in a white T-shirt, short shorts, thick goggles, and high white socks, who simply would not give up his pick-up game of basketball, had a common purpose: win 30 or more games.\u00c2\u00a0 According to pitcher Trevor Young-Hyman, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it was always just that excitement about playing baseball again. I would always [screw] up my arm because I wanted to be throwing 100% right away.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Winter practices were an exercise in individual work ethic as well as frustration.\u00c2\u00a0 Pitchers, infielders, and outfielders all had their own routines.\u00c2\u00a0 Pitchers ran, threw bullpens, hit fungos, and did fingertip push-ups against a wall.\u00c2\u00a0 Infielders ran, hit off a tee, hit in the cage that dropped down from the ceiling, and fielded the aforementioned fungos.\u00c2\u00a0 Outfielders ran, hit, and imagined what fly balls might look like once we got outside. Pitcher Tim Heaven recalls, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The best compliment I ever got from coach was in the gym (it took 4 years)- Freshmen year-\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcKeep the bat out of Heaven’s hands\u00e2\u20ac\u2122; Senior year-\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcTim, you’re really not that bad with fungos anymore\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Before we could begin, though, we had to set up the gym.\u00c2\u00a0 Mats had to be moved, wooden mounds had to dropped, L screens and pitching machines were moved into the drop down cages.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Indoor practices make your clothes extra staticy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Matt Knepper, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Things that are not supposed to move, like the mounds and first base, did; things that were supposed to move like pitches and ground balls, didn’t.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Between bullpen sessions, infield practice, catches, batting practice, and hitters working off the tees, the orange gym was always alive.\u00c2\u00a0 At any given moment, ten or more baseballs were in flight.\u00c2\u00a0 The THWACK of a wooden bat connecting with a rubber, dimpled ball permeated the gym.\u00c2\u00a0 Mis-thrown baseballs and 50-foot curveballs echoed as they smacked against the ecru walls and caromed off into unexpected directions.\u00c2\u00a0 Infield work was made all the more interesting when the third baseman would throw across our makeshift diamond behind the backboard of a low-hanging basketball hoop.\u00c2\u00a0 Every once in awhile, a ball hit at just the correct angle would skip under the netting of a cage or the curtain dividing the gym between batting and fielding practice and turn into low-flying, shinbone-seeking missiles.\u00c2\u00a0 Conor Kenney, whom coach referred to as Conway Twiddy throughout his tenure at Washington University, writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a missed ground ball would bounce off the wall and hit the infielder in the ass, back, neck, or head… funny to the pitchers – not so funny to the gently bruised infielder.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, because practices mostly ran through the early afternoon, players operated on their own schedules, fitting in their training around their class schedules.\u00c2\u00a0 One of my teammates, who typically led the team as both an offensive and pitching force, would always wander into practice ten to twenty minutes late, sipping soda from a waxed paper cup and munching on potato chips.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had practices in the gym?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d another teammate half jokingly replies.\u00c2\u00a0 Winter practices comprised a plethora of individual challenges: simulated bullpens, hitting games, pitchers \u00e2\u20ac\u0153making bets on how many steps left or right we could make the infielder go with each swing of the fungo,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and finally trying to duck out for class before practice concluded and we had to return the gym to its original state.<\/p>\n

With pitchers and catchers reporting in less than a month, we all have our signs signaling the coming of the new season.\u00c2\u00a0 For some, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s TBS showing the movie Major League.\u00c2\u00a0 For others, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the first time Baseball Tonight returns to ESPN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s schedule.\u00c2\u00a0 For me, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always the Super Bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 I flash back to that snowy Sunday night in St. Louis, where I spent two hours hitting grounders that predictably took three hops before bouncing into a fielder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s glove, hoping that my shins would be safe from any number of low flying missiles, and doing my best not to puke.<\/p>\n

One indoor practice, when two teammates entered the gym looking like Johnny Damon circa 2004, Coach Lessmann deftly assessed the team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chances, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We should be pretty good this year,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he chuckled, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got Jesus Christ at third and Abraham Lincoln at first.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00c2\u00a0As I plodded through a St. Louis winter flurry, trudged into the gym alight with a low orange glow, and began to run my ten laps upon the rubber track surrounding the three basketball courts that comprised our winter practice area, I felt the cheeseburgers cooked on the Foreman Grill, the countless hot wings, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947","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\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}