Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Game 2
On Saturday I had my second baseball game in my short 3-game fall season. I was excited to take the field and especially to bat again. The weather was perfect, sunny and very clear with no haze and with temperatures in the upper 70s. However, I noticed early on during warmups that I had some lingering tightness in my right quadricep. I tried to gently stretch it out and relax it, but to no avail. The game started, and I was in right field, hoping that I wouldn't have to run down any line drives. Fortunately, we had a very good pitcher who struck out the side each of the first two innings.
I came up to bat in the bottom of the second, and with two on and on a 2-2 pitch I slapped a blooping drive out over short into shallow left-center for my first hit in over 20 years! I was very excited, except when I ran to first my quad seized up hard on me, and I realized that I probably was not going to finish the game. I had never felt leg pain like that before - it was as if someone had pounded my upper thigh with a bat. The inning continued, and I eventually made it to second and even to third, but I gave up then, asking the coach to get a pinch-runner for me. I ended up sitting out the rest of the game, taking some generously offered Advil and icing my quad and gently walking around for the next 2 hours. What a bummer.
I had a lot of time to ponder how this happened. After some discussion, I've concluded that I caused this problem by overusing that muscle at the batting cages the previous day. At the cages I sampled some 'fast' and 'very fast' pitching, and found to my delight that not only could I catch up to it, I could slug it. It was great fun - however, I did note that my stance and swing probably could use some adjustment. I didn't feel any pain, but my forward leg (the right leg - I bat lefty) always seemed to be planting very hard when I swung. That's fine and all, except that muscle is not accustomed to being used so forcefully. That had to be the reason I felt this asymmetric leg pain - regular running soreness would have caused both left and right quads to feel some tightness, but batting would definitely not evenly distribute muscle use.
I've let 'Coach Nick' know that I'm day-to-day for Saturday's matinee game. The weather looks to be good again, a little cooler but still nice. I want to get out there and hit and catch and throw, but I can't afford to aggravate this quad pull, or whatever it is. Ah, the life of a ballplayer, battling injury just to make his mark.
tags: baseball
I came up to bat in the bottom of the second, and with two on and on a 2-2 pitch I slapped a blooping drive out over short into shallow left-center for my first hit in over 20 years! I was very excited, except when I ran to first my quad seized up hard on me, and I realized that I probably was not going to finish the game. I had never felt leg pain like that before - it was as if someone had pounded my upper thigh with a bat. The inning continued, and I eventually made it to second and even to third, but I gave up then, asking the coach to get a pinch-runner for me. I ended up sitting out the rest of the game, taking some generously offered Advil and icing my quad and gently walking around for the next 2 hours. What a bummer.
I had a lot of time to ponder how this happened. After some discussion, I've concluded that I caused this problem by overusing that muscle at the batting cages the previous day. At the cages I sampled some 'fast' and 'very fast' pitching, and found to my delight that not only could I catch up to it, I could slug it. It was great fun - however, I did note that my stance and swing probably could use some adjustment. I didn't feel any pain, but my forward leg (the right leg - I bat lefty) always seemed to be planting very hard when I swung. That's fine and all, except that muscle is not accustomed to being used so forcefully. That had to be the reason I felt this asymmetric leg pain - regular running soreness would have caused both left and right quads to feel some tightness, but batting would definitely not evenly distribute muscle use.
I've let 'Coach Nick' know that I'm day-to-day for Saturday's matinee game. The weather looks to be good again, a little cooler but still nice. I want to get out there and hit and catch and throw, but I can't afford to aggravate this quad pull, or whatever it is. Ah, the life of a ballplayer, battling injury just to make his mark.
tags: baseball
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Post-game wrapup
As mentioned yesterday, I played in my first baseball game since junior-high days. Overall I'd have to say I picked up pretty much where I left off...
The game didn't go so well for our side. The final score was something like 20-6. We fell behind in the second inning, and every inning after that the other side kept piling on a few more runs. Our pitching struggled, walking way too many, and giving up some gappers and bloop hits.
For my part, I was a little nervous, but I think I did OK. I was 0-1 in 3 plate appearances, with 2 walks and a run scored. I always walked a lot in little league - pitchers would often never throw me strikes. In the field I started in right field, and had 1 putout in 2 chances. That second chance was a flyball over my head - I had underplayed the batter. Ooops. In left field in the 7th inning, I had another misplay, which I conveniently blame on the sun. In those later innings I really was having trouble seeing the ball off the bat.
In the middle innings I actually got to play my favorite position of second base. I only had a couple chances to make plays there as it turns out - on a DP opportunity, the third baseman threw low and wide and the ball skipped out to right field. I probably should have done more to at least stop the throw, but in the end it didn't really matter.
We play again next Saturday, and I plan on hitting the cages sometime this week. I'll also use my George Brett glove next time - yeah, that's it. It was that Deion Sanders glove that messed me up!
tags: baseball
The game didn't go so well for our side. The final score was something like 20-6. We fell behind in the second inning, and every inning after that the other side kept piling on a few more runs. Our pitching struggled, walking way too many, and giving up some gappers and bloop hits.
For my part, I was a little nervous, but I think I did OK. I was 0-1 in 3 plate appearances, with 2 walks and a run scored. I always walked a lot in little league - pitchers would often never throw me strikes. In the field I started in right field, and had 1 putout in 2 chances. That second chance was a flyball over my head - I had underplayed the batter. Ooops. In left field in the 7th inning, I had another misplay, which I conveniently blame on the sun. In those later innings I really was having trouble seeing the ball off the bat.
In the middle innings I actually got to play my favorite position of second base. I only had a couple chances to make plays there as it turns out - on a DP opportunity, the third baseman threw low and wide and the ball skipped out to right field. I probably should have done more to at least stop the throw, but in the end it didn't really matter.
We play again next Saturday, and I plan on hitting the cages sometime this week. I'll also use my George Brett glove next time - yeah, that's it. It was that Deion Sanders glove that messed me up!
tags: baseball
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