Random thought:
iydmkwlelslliyfmilosea ....
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Everyone has those memorable childhood classic movies they can almost recite line for line off the top of their head. You know what I'm talking about, for girls it's probably movies like The Little Mermaid or Bambi, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. For us guys raised around generation X's upbringing maybe Toy Story or The Lion King.. but for me and most of my friends growing up it was probably The Sandlot. It was a movie depicting how baseball = the way of life, and when a kid mistakenly takes his step dad Bill's signed Babe Ruth baseball and knocks it over the fence into "the beasts" yard, trouble ensues when they try to retrieve it but friendships forever bond. It wasn't just a movie, if you snipped out the killer dog who ate children part it was almost a depiction of our daily summer lives. All we did back then was side tournaments, games, training, baseball, scrimmage, side tournaments, games, training. Over and over and over.
And we were good, real good.
I'll probably replace this later with another picture as this doesn't do justice. We probably won around 20 medals in the 9 or so years we played together and I have a few trophies downstairs in the basement. Our team was almost magical, almost something right out of the movies themselves. Most years, we just meshed seamlessly together, everyone knew what everyone else was thinking and everyone knew their roles on the team.
I remember all the memories like it was still yesterday, from my first homerun, everyones quirks to silly obscure things not at all related to actual baseball. How I was pitching during one of the side tournaments and we were both shafted by the organizing comity and playing through ungodly heat. It was near +42 celsius (or higher) the entire afternoon we played that day, which was hell playing through just one game where you were constantly becoming dehydrated just standing there as the innings never seemed to end. I distinctly remember standing on the mound and resting my eyes for about two and a half seconds and almost passing out from heatstroke. I kind of waivered over helplessly but not entirely as people tend to do when they've deprived themselves of sleep for too long, it was way too hot and as I said the organizing comity had shafted us.
It was a weekend, two loss tournament.
You lose twice, you were eliminated. By friday (when everyone started) we didn't play any games at all. I don't know whose idea that clever one was but to make up for it, on Saturday we had to wake up by 7 AM since our first game was scheduled 7:30 AM in the morning. We finished at around 11 AM, and since we won our entry game we were to play another team who had won earlier Friday. We literally walked across the field, stopping for 5 minutes at a 7/11 to pick up a hotdog and a coke on our way to the next game and that was it for our break. We won that game too, which is when the sun really started to set in, as we were still a game behind the other two winning teams we were forced to play one more. We played 3 games which spanned about 10 hours in 30-40 celsius heat that day; by the middle of the third game we were all thoroughly exhausted and on the verge of passing out. One of the moms there walked over to the same 7/11 and bought about 10 bags of ice, drove up in her truck and just dumped them all on the grass around our bench. She pitched a makeshift tent around the ice so whoever wasn't playing instantly stayed cool. AND massaged us. She was a God that day.
Possibly with a preteen boy fetish.
I remember playing through the exact opposite one time during the city finals, it was raining SO hard but the umpire refused to call the game because there was no lightning and it was a city game. There was so much rain you could probably slide from first base into the outfield without stopping the grass was so slippery. In a rare occasion we were smoked too, we came into that game as the heavy favorites but ended up losing 15-1. I remember it was even more embarrassing as that year we had pulled off a perfect 16-0 (win/loss) season. The local paper had picked up on it and interviewed us for that feel good 6 o'clock new story so we had our 15 minutes of fame. They asked us how we were going to do when we went into the city finals so of course, with our new found cocky attitudes that went straight to our head most of us answered saying we'd bring back the gold. Our first game, was so tight and hands down to this day still one of the best defensive games we've ever played. We lost simply 1-0, after I think 13 innings. It went on and on and on and on, and finally ended when someone hit a triple, then another smacked a single and brought him home. The second game we lost the aforementioned 15-1. The city finals are also two loss eliminations, so in two games we were out.
Ironically, the season after that we went on to have another 16-0 season. We were the first team since Homesteader I believe the old trophy said since 1968 to have two perfect back to back seasons, the following season after that we could have been the first team ever to have 3 perfect seasons.. but luck and karma smacked us in the face again. We went 15-0 in the first 15 games but lost the very last game of the season 3-1.
I pitched almost the entire time I played baseball. I had for probably 95% of the seasons a catcher named Kevin who knew me inside and out. I pitched also pretty fast for my age group-then, maybe around 60-80 mphs which was a lot higher than average. I remember one year another catcher came up and he wanted time instead of being shoved into center field since all our positions were filled, I didn't want another catcher but my coach insisted it was better to have two instead of one just incase. Kevin had always caught for me, as far as I was concerned Kevin will always catch for me. He put the other catcher in anyway, but not without warning. He told the kid to becareful catching (this was still when I was maybe.. 12) because I pitched very fast for my age. The new kid sort of brushed me off, "yeah whatever" and leaned down to take the first pitch.
I threw it.. and.
"FUCK" is all you heard next. He screamed and screamed and screamed as I had just broken his index finger. Part of me thought, well that sucks, but the other part thought YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. That was so cool.
And so much more! I hope alzheimers never takes these memories from me.
I take it back. If I ever invented a time machine I wouldn't check out the dinosaurs. I'd just go back into the 1990's and relive all the tournaments, scraped knees and summers.
iydmkwlelslliyfmilosea ....
-
Everyone has those memorable childhood classic movies they can almost recite line for line off the top of their head. You know what I'm talking about, for girls it's probably movies like The Little Mermaid or Bambi, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. For us guys raised around generation X's upbringing maybe Toy Story or The Lion King.. but for me and most of my friends growing up it was probably The Sandlot. It was a movie depicting how baseball = the way of life, and when a kid mistakenly takes his step dad Bill's signed Babe Ruth baseball and knocks it over the fence into "the beasts" yard, trouble ensues when they try to retrieve it but friendships forever bond. It wasn't just a movie, if you snipped out the killer dog who ate children part it was almost a depiction of our daily summer lives. All we did back then was side tournaments, games, training, baseball, scrimmage, side tournaments, games, training. Over and over and over.
And we were good, real good.
I'll probably replace this later with another picture as this doesn't do justice. We probably won around 20 medals in the 9 or so years we played together and I have a few trophies downstairs in the basement. Our team was almost magical, almost something right out of the movies themselves. Most years, we just meshed seamlessly together, everyone knew what everyone else was thinking and everyone knew their roles on the team.
I remember all the memories like it was still yesterday, from my first homerun, everyones quirks to silly obscure things not at all related to actual baseball. How I was pitching during one of the side tournaments and we were both shafted by the organizing comity and playing through ungodly heat. It was near +42 celsius (or higher) the entire afternoon we played that day, which was hell playing through just one game where you were constantly becoming dehydrated just standing there as the innings never seemed to end. I distinctly remember standing on the mound and resting my eyes for about two and a half seconds and almost passing out from heatstroke. I kind of waivered over helplessly but not entirely as people tend to do when they've deprived themselves of sleep for too long, it was way too hot and as I said the organizing comity had shafted us.
It was a weekend, two loss tournament.
You lose twice, you were eliminated. By friday (when everyone started) we didn't play any games at all. I don't know whose idea that clever one was but to make up for it, on Saturday we had to wake up by 7 AM since our first game was scheduled 7:30 AM in the morning. We finished at around 11 AM, and since we won our entry game we were to play another team who had won earlier Friday. We literally walked across the field, stopping for 5 minutes at a 7/11 to pick up a hotdog and a coke on our way to the next game and that was it for our break. We won that game too, which is when the sun really started to set in, as we were still a game behind the other two winning teams we were forced to play one more. We played 3 games which spanned about 10 hours in 30-40 celsius heat that day; by the middle of the third game we were all thoroughly exhausted and on the verge of passing out. One of the moms there walked over to the same 7/11 and bought about 10 bags of ice, drove up in her truck and just dumped them all on the grass around our bench. She pitched a makeshift tent around the ice so whoever wasn't playing instantly stayed cool. AND massaged us. She was a God that day.
I remember playing through the exact opposite one time during the city finals, it was raining SO hard but the umpire refused to call the game because there was no lightning and it was a city game. There was so much rain you could probably slide from first base into the outfield without stopping the grass was so slippery. In a rare occasion we were smoked too, we came into that game as the heavy favorites but ended up losing 15-1. I remember it was even more embarrassing as that year we had pulled off a perfect 16-0 (win/loss) season. The local paper had picked up on it and interviewed us for that feel good 6 o'clock new story so we had our 15 minutes of fame. They asked us how we were going to do when we went into the city finals so of course, with our new found cocky attitudes that went straight to our head most of us answered saying we'd bring back the gold. Our first game, was so tight and hands down to this day still one of the best defensive games we've ever played. We lost simply 1-0, after I think 13 innings. It went on and on and on and on, and finally ended when someone hit a triple, then another smacked a single and brought him home. The second game we lost the aforementioned 15-1. The city finals are also two loss eliminations, so in two games we were out.
Ironically, the season after that we went on to have another 16-0 season. We were the first team since Homesteader I believe the old trophy said since 1968 to have two perfect back to back seasons, the following season after that we could have been the first team ever to have 3 perfect seasons.. but luck and karma smacked us in the face again. We went 15-0 in the first 15 games but lost the very last game of the season 3-1.
I pitched almost the entire time I played baseball. I had for probably 95% of the seasons a catcher named Kevin who knew me inside and out. I pitched also pretty fast for my age group-then, maybe around 60-80 mphs which was a lot higher than average. I remember one year another catcher came up and he wanted time instead of being shoved into center field since all our positions were filled, I didn't want another catcher but my coach insisted it was better to have two instead of one just incase. Kevin had always caught for me, as far as I was concerned Kevin will always catch for me. He put the other catcher in anyway, but not without warning. He told the kid to becareful catching (this was still when I was maybe.. 12) because I pitched very fast for my age. The new kid sort of brushed me off, "yeah whatever" and leaned down to take the first pitch.
I threw it.. and.
"FUCK" is all you heard next. He screamed and screamed and screamed as I had just broken his index finger. Part of me thought, well that sucks, but the other part thought YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. That was so cool.
And so much more! I hope alzheimers never takes these memories from me.
I take it back. If I ever invented a time machine I wouldn't check out the dinosaurs. I'd just go back into the 1990's and relive all the tournaments, scraped knees and summers.
Comments
And why did you cut it when you did?! I want to see what happens in that movie now.
but before you get a timemachine you should find yourself a fountain of youth ;)