Muscle Memory ... another way sports matters

From: Take Two and Hit to Right...   

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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.