Baseball at two score

The recent 40th birthday was fun. To celebrate four decades of my existence on Earth, my family got me something that lasted only a few hours but with memories that will last a lifetime, or at least until senility sets in. June 12, I got to participate in the Royals Alumni Batting Practice, a baseball workout (including BP, infield and outfield) at Kauffman Stadium with former Royals players and about 30 other guys like me (older than 25, enjoy baseball).

Rather than a sequential recap of the morning's events ("then I hit one to the outfield, yippeee") let's look at a  couple of the bigger picture items:

• Reminder of why I liked playing baseball so much from age 5 through college, and
• How time changes your perspective

Baseball -- while at its core an individual game between batter and pitcher, repeated about 125 times a game -- has a pace that flow that encourages interaction among teammates like no other sport. And this extends to practicing of the game. I had never met any of the other guys at this event before it started, and yet by the time it ended I could tell you a little bit about most of the them in my group (they divided us into 4 groups to rotate through the stations). You see how a player reacts to success, how he reacts to failure, how he reacts to coaching and instruction. The game exposes all of those things constantly. Because baseball is broken up into bursts of activity or concentration (the actual pitch, the ensuing defensive play, the actions of the baserunner) that lasts anywhere from 1 second to maybe 7 seconds), followed by a pause until the next moment of activity, filling the time between those actions is what players remember about the game long after the playing days end.

The blunt honesty and self-humbling nature of the game is different than what we see around us today, where everyone is always the best and most special (or at least told that they are from the moment of birth until adulthood), when reality would say differently. At one point during the BP portion, I "crushed" a pitch from Willie Wilson that traveled probably 310 feet or so down the right-field line. Still well short of the warning track, let alone the wall. I took an extra-long look at my handiwork. This violates the general baseball rule of not acting like an idiot when you've done nothing special. The ball hadn't yet hit the ground and Wilson was already bringing me back to reality.

"You want to stand and watch THAT? The only place that ball ends up is in the outfielder's glove. I'll let you know when you hit one that's worthy of watching."

And he was right. This conversation took place right after the last swing in the clip below. Look hard, you can see the ball making its way toward right field.

A final thought (or two). The Royals deserve credit for putting on a first-class event. The former Royals went above and beyond in making everyone feel welcome. They didn't stand off in the corner and talk amongst themselves. They talked with everyone, treated everyone like we were all on the same team for the day.

And finally (for real), my cheering section. They are the best.