From: Take Two and Hit to Right...
http://herm4444.blogspot.com/
Muscle Memory
Herm Card,
2018
Muscle
memory is the key to athletic success. It is essential to attaining the highest
level of, competence, that of being unknowingly skilled. It is the result of
constant practice, the repetition of a single act countless times. It allows
the body to simply react to situations – to do what is required without
thinking about it, to make plays automatically, to react naturally without
hesitation – to flow.
Watching a third baseman make plays
that I once made is, at the same time, nostalgic and discouraging. As the play unfolds, I am able to feel the athleticism,
to almost physically recall the kinesthetic sense of the play, and yet, at the
same time, realize that that same type of action now would likely result in embarrassment and possibly injury.
So I found
out recently when I was asked to return to the field for a Syracuse Challenger
Baseball “All Star” softball game. From the beginning I sensed it was a bad
idea, but Dom Cambareri’s proposal, actually the proverbial offer I couldn’t
refuse, won me over. He started by
asking me if I would contact my close friend, former teammate, and part-time
employer, State Senator John DeFrancisco, to get him to play.
“Sure,” I
said. “He’ll love it.”
“And,” said
Dom, Challenger’s executive director, “You should play too. You guys were
teammates at SU fifty years ago…we can stage a reunion. It’ll be great. He
plays short, you play third, just like then. We’ll call you guys our ‘secret
weapons.’ Perfect.”
It sounded perfect
in theory, but likely imperfect in execution.
I had played
baseball from the time I was seven until I was 30. After that, I played high
level fast-pitch softball, then found other ways to occupy my athletic propensities.
I was thirty-five years away from the last time I had fielded a grounder or
swung a bat for real.
“It’ll be fun,” said John.
“No, it won’t,” said my inner voice.
Fun is, of
course, subjective.
I never completely understood the
concept of “fun” in sports. I understood
the concept of competition and the enjoyment of competing and the idea that it
was “more fun winning than losing” but there has to be a deeper sense than fun
if you are serious about it. I was
always serious about it in what I considered a controlled way. Practice was
fun. Team bus rides were fun. Lobby sitting was fun. The game itself, was
serious.
The Challenger Baseball softball
game was supposed to be fun, and in the larger sense, it was. The league’s coaches, parents and senior
league players were on one team, local television personalities and staffers
were on the other. As in Challenger games, everyone on the team batted
regardless of whether or not they were also playing defense.
John and I
warmed up by playing catch. Playing catch requires nothing more than throwing a
ball back and forth – catching and throwing – the essence of baseball.
He is far
more athletically active than I have been, even to the point of having played in a senior baseball league in
Florida two years ago. He plays tennis. He plays basketball. He plays a
mysterious game called “pickleball.” I walk through the woods taking photos of
birds and through the stands of ballparks taking photos of AAA baseball
players.
He threw, I
caught. I threw, he chased the ball that I threw wildly past him. He threw, I
caught. I threw, he again chased the ball that I threw wildly past him. The
trend was clear. I painfully adjusted my throwing angle, with little
success. My arm would not respond to the
muscle memory urgings. I developed a system of awkwardly arching the ball to
him.
I once had a Cincinnati Reds scout
tell me I had a very good arm. I still have a good arm, I just can’t throw a baseball
with it.
Infield
practice provided another lesson. I told the first baseman that he would have
to accept that if the ball was hit to me, my throw would arrive at first base
on several bounces. Accurate, but
bouncing. Fine with him, he said. I told
the pitcher that if the ball was hit to my right, I might relay it to him. Fine
with him, he said.
I used to have a dream that I was
back in the game. I was playing third base, completely unsure of myself,
wondering what would happen if the ball was hit to me. Athletes need “first contact” to dismiss the
pre-game jitters and inning after inning
the game went on and no one hit the ball to me. The tension became unbearable –
I spent entire dream-games anticipating the ball and never having the
satisfaction of knowing what would happen if it was hit to me.
The leadoff batter hit the first pitch of the game right
at me. In all honesty, it took a bad
bounce and glanced off the heel of my glove.
I tracked it down quickly, but instinctively knew that my throw on
several bounces, or even relayed by the pitcher, would be useless.
The imaginary
scorekeeper in my head debated between a hit and an error. Pride in my previous
ability forced me to ring up an E-5. I should have had it, despite the bounce.
The second
batter hit a bouncer to my left and muscle memory kicked in. Incredulously, I
found myself going to my left snagging it cleanly, pivoting on the run and
firing a four-hop throw to the second
baseman for the force out.
Unfortunately,
he was not in on the deal I had made with the first baseman about bouncing the
ball, and it bounced off his forearm. As
he tracked it down, the runner attempted to make third and the second baseman’s
throw to John covering third nailed the runner.
Running through the scoring in my
head, I decided that the runner would have been safe at second anyway, so
technically it was a fielder’s choice, no error, and I would be credited with
an assist and the play would be scored 5-4-6. Home cooking, as they say.
After a
couple of intervening plays, with two outs and runners on first and second,
John fielded a two-hopper and instinctively I called for the ball. He threw to
me for the force out, and the inning was over.
Oddly, I recalled my first varsity defensive
play at SU on a two-out bouncer to me that I fielded and stepped on third for a
force out. That moment was somewhat lessened by the fact that I had been
inserted in the next-to-last inning of a 23-2 beating by Navy and that I had
been so relieved to have made the play that I forgot to leave the ball on the
field and the umpire had to yell for me to give it back.
The deal
with Dom that the senator had made was that, similar to our long-ago lineup, he
would bat first and I would bat second.
Occasionally,
people ask me if I miss playing baseball.
While I may miss being able to play, I don’t miss the playing itself,
but in many ways I miss the essence of playing, the tactile sensations of the
game, rather than the game itself. The game and I have both changed too much.
I miss the act of putting on a
uniform, the ritual associated with arranging each item just so. In the days when baseball pants were short,
just below the knee, and stirrup socks were visible, there was a technique to
getting the look just right. The act of rolling them together and smoothing
them out was taught to me by my junior high baseball coach, a former minor-leaguer, who assembled the team one day and told us
that looking like ballplayers would convince the other team that we were
ballplayers. “Proving how good you are
is up to you,” was the rest of the message.
There were
several bats to choose from. I picked them up one at a time, took a few
practice swings, and settled on one that seemed right. It felt good in my hands, muscle memory
kicked in right length, right weight, right balance, right feel.
I
remember the feeling of solid contact between bat and ball. There is very little sensation when you hit
the ball solidly on the sweet spot. The physics of bat and ball is such that
perfect contact is rewarded with a sensation
that can only be understood when it is experienced, much like there is
no way to define why the Mona Lisa is a good painting or why hot dogs taste
good. The physical sense of it is remarkably satisfying nonetheless.
I missed the
first pitch and popped up the second one to the shortstop.
The
sensation I got hitting that weak pop up to short was one of relief. I had made contact. I had hit the ball
fair. I was envisioning a solid liner to
left center, but the popup absolved me of the potential embarrassment of
missing the ball again. Plus, I didn’t have to risk injury by running the
bases.
I remembered that there were times
when I would not have reacted well to popping out. I was never entirely
comfortable with the adage that “Hall of
Famers fail seven out of ten at bats.”
I knew it was true, but it didn’t make much sense that failure could be
dismissed that easily.
We sat
together on the bench, fifty-plus years after having done it for the last time
as SU teammates. With a hint of irony, John complimented me on not striking out.
That’s what friends do. I thought about sticking around for a second turn at
bat, but talked myself out of it. He batted again and hit a double. He said he
would have tried for third but didn’t want to risk it.
Didn’t want to risk it? In 1968 he
suffered a broken cheekbone when he was hit in the face with the ball while trying to break up a double
play against Navy. I was the first person to get to him from our bench. His
face was a mess. It was pretty clear his season was over.
He was back three weeks later and
finished the season wearing a lacrosse helmet to protect his face.
Years later,
with a hint of irony, I told him it was a terrible slide. That’s what friends
do.
If someone
had said to me in 1965 that John and I would be sitting next to each other in a
dugout fifty-plus years later I would have found that somewhat unlikely, at
best. Apparently the odds were better than I would have predicted
.
That we were
there is an affirmation that people really don’t change. Fifty-three years
after we first met we are still friends. We share a similar sense of humor. Our
yin/yang personalities complement each other. John is organized, I am less so.
John remembers everything necessary to serve his constituents. I keep track of
the less critical, but pretty interesting details to fill in.
Friendship has
its own sort of muscle memory. It allows us to simply react to situations – to
do what is required, to communicate without thinking about it, to react
naturally without hesitation, to pick up where we left off regardless of what
has intervened, to make life’s plays automatically. It is the result of constant practice, the
repetition of acts that verify the commonality of two people. It makes the
passage of time irrelevant.
