The day off was more than great and rather uneventful, as
planned. I returned to the field to find a few new faces and saw that a few
others were missing or on their way out of town. The locker next to me is now
empty, because, as we all know, Sean Thompson is now in Mobile and his
replacement is on his was into town. This quickly reminded me that my days
here may be numbered as those that were on the DL are coming off in the next
couple of days leaving us with too few roster spots for too many people.
It’s pretty standard for a nomad like myself to get settled
in, just in time to move again. That’s the way it goes. I did all I could
really do. I played how I think they wanted me to play and I will just
have to wait to see how it all pans out.
So I hear a few of you are wondering how I got so screwed
up. That’s right. How does one become a left-handed throwing,
right-handed hitting baseball player? It takes years and years of practice
and I wouldn’t recommend anyone try it. If you don’t already know, this
oddity really limits your baseball flexibility. I’m pretty much limited to
five positions on the field. There are the three outfield positions,
first-base, and pitcher.
Now lets see where I fit among these five positions.
First-base is pretty much out seeing that I’m not a huge power-hitting guy that
can’t move very well. Pitching was out of the question in high school
because no matter where I threw it, or how hard I threw it, I got hit all over
the yard. So, that leaves the three outfield positions, where I roam these
days. So much for being versatile and therein lies the reason that I don’t
recommend anyone else try this.
It all started when I was just a wee-little guy. My
older brothers played baseball and I would frequently tag along with them to the
batting cages. Despite being too small and too young to be allowed in the
cages I always found my way into the action. Not knowing what handed I was
at the time I copied my older brothers’ right-handed stances. Wanting to
be just like them, I copied pretty much everything that they did and at the time
no one really noticed or thought enough about it to make the change. I
thought about switch-hitting but it never really stuck, granted I didn’t really
give it all that much time. So here I am, a 5’10” left-handed throwing
right-handed hitting outfielder. Thank the good man that I can run a
little bit or I probably wouldn’t be here to write this article.