When I was in the 5th grade, I began playing "kid pitch" baseball. In other words, I had long since graduated from the tee, coach pitch was a distant memory, and I could no longer rely on a pitching machine to launch me perfect down-the-pipe pitches every time. With kid pitch, we kids pitched to eachother. My BA went from about an .850 with a slugging percentage of 1.500 to somewhere below .100 (in other words, if it wasn't right down the pipe, I couldn't hit it).
But this is not about my demise in baseball slugging. This is about my rise as a kid league pitcher. With an absolute cannon for an arm.
Before the season began, dad had decided that I would be a pitcher. He was going to be the team coach, and he knew that I at least had an inkling of how the game worked. Remember, this is little league. Any kid that wants to play gets to play. And any kid that gets to play gets playing time, so each team was guaranteed to have about 6-8 kids on a 15 player roster that had no freaking idea what was going on. Kids that picked dandylions in the outfield, made dirt forts and short stops, and were absolutely afraid of hard, flying objects. I was did none of these things, mostly because dad would have whooped me raw had I messed around on the diamond.
Dad also knew that my arm was a 5th grade howitzer. I would later go on to win the fast pitch competition for our age group (5th-6th grade) as a 5th grader. I had a 58mph fastball. No big league or anything, but fast enough to leave imprinted laces on flesh.
I don't think I ever went a game without pegging a kid. I had no control, I just wanted to throw it as hard as I could every time. Which was hard. I made lots of kids cry. Several wail. And even put a few out of games. It was pretty bad; these little 5th grade kids (most of which were my friends) that had no idea what was happening having to stand inside a little box as some brute launched a manmade aerodynamic rock at them. They'd cringe, get blasted, and hit the dirt and role around for a while, kinda like a rabbit does after getting peppered with a 4-10. The free bases were not worth it, but I gave them freely.
I don't remember how many kids I hit, who I hit, or who the last one was that I hit. However, I will never forget the first person I sniped, and she wasn't a kid.
My poor, poor mother...
Dad had me in our back yard working on pitching. I'd never done it before, so he was teaching me. I'd stand about 20 feet away, and throw the ball as hard as I could at his mit. I tried to break his hand every time, hoping that one day the ball would go so fast as to blow through his mit and leave burn marks on his chest. I never quite got there, but some say I got close.
Anyhow, one afternoon I was pitching to dad. And talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time, mom was doing some yardwork in the back yard. Dad decides that I need to start pitching with a batter there. I can see the wheels churning as he voices this to me, then looks at mama. He looks back at me, then looks back at mama. He looked at me, then back at victim #1.
Dad knew as well as anyone that I could throw the ball hard. But also, he wanted me to be good, an the only way to get better was to practice with a dummy posing as a batter. Oh, mama.
He calls over to mama, who walks over, clueless, like a stray dog being lured into the pound truck by a dogcop with a treat. He then tells my mother that he would like for her to stand in as a batter. Mom, baffled and terrified, couldn't talk as she merely shook her head no. no, no, no. Dad insisted that she would be fine. However, mom had seen me launch fireballs at dads mit every afternoon, and was quite familiar with the "smack" of leather ball blistering leather mit. Mom was very much aware that I my arm was used to fire military ammunition.
But dad insisted that I wouldn't hit her, and all she had to do was stand there. I had pretty good aim, he told her, and he also informed her that in order to see her son be a good pitcher, he needed to practice with fresh meat in the batter's box. This was a cheapshot by dad, as he knew that the only way to get mom to willingly stand in front of a bullet was to tell her that she was doing it for her child.
She took up a bat.
I paced to my pitcher's mound.
Dad took up his position behind mom.
Mama stood there, shaking, awkwardly holding the bat. Her body language was that of a dog knowing its about to be beat. She continued to tremble as I eyed the strike zone. I wound up. Mom's eyes closed forcefully shut as my arm arced forward in a menacing swing. The ball left my hand hurtling near the sound barrier as my beloved mother stood awkwardly hunched over with her eyes plastered shut, shaking, not knowing the ball was coming but being fully aware that it was almost there.
And though I had never missed dad's glove by more than a foot, my first pitch with a batter was wide right, by about 2 feet, and about another foot and a half feet high. It crashed into mother's ribs, altering the oh-so-usual "smack" of leather on leather into a "thwack" of leather on tissue. The ball continued its path for a few inches into her ribs until finally giving up its quest to pass all the way through her body. She let out a "grauuhhhphst" of a noise as all of the air rushed from her compromised lungs. She dropped on site, and groaned.
Life completed a cycle as I, once her fetus, watched my mother curl into the form I had occupied for 9 months insider her very own womb.
I ran over to her, and she looked awful. She was writhing, covered in dirt, and curled in a ball holding her ribs. Dad had this face saying "Oh sh*t I didn't really think you'd hit her". And mom got pissed. Like pissed enough to forget that she had just taken a round to the side. It was like hunting wild boar and merely winging the feral animal, leaving it to charge your no longer hidden position. Luckily, this wild boar knew well enough not to charge the gunman, but the gunman's dad who taught the boy to hunt.
If mom would have had an arm like mine, she would have been launching rockets and dad's face. I'm surprised she didn't pick up the bat and use his shoulders as a tee. Actually, if I hadn't just ruined half her rib cage, she probably would have. But she didn't kill my father, just gave him an earful of things she would want none of you to know she said.
I felt horrible. As big of a punk as I could be, I had just darn near killed my mother. She had a softball sized bruise for over a week, and I think her whole thorax ached for days.
After that, mom didn't even come outside when we were practicing. And I continued to learn to pitch without a feaux batter. By the time the season came around, I wasn't much better. However, having previously drilled my mother with a baseball, I wasn't even phased the first time I killed one of my classmates. And I killed a lot of my classmates.
I know my mom has sacrificed a lot to raise me, but nothing quite says "I will do anything for my children" like willingly stepping in front of a loaded canon and taking a rocket in the ribs.
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