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| How to strike out a banty rooster at home plate |
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| Watching the Little League World Series on television brings back memories of my youth. Not that I ever played in Williamsport; my team wasn’t that good.
We weren’t that big, either.
I watched a Little League game last month in which one pitcher was 6 feet 2 inches and 180 pounds. Can you imagine standing at the plate, facing that kid, with the mound 44 feet away?
We didn’t have kids like that when I was growing up. The biggest player on my team was probably 5 feet tall and 110 pounds, soaking wet. The smallest could barely lift a catcher’s mitt.
Some of the teams had kids even smaller than ours. The shortest player I can remember was Jeff Walters. Jeff played for the Dodgers, and I played for the Indians the summer of 1956. Jeff was so small he had to stand on a milk can to see out of the dugout.
Jeff was not only small for his age, but he could crouch down at the plate like a banty hen snuggling down on her nest. Then, he dared the opposing pitcher to try to throw a strike. Considering his strike zone was about the size of a milk bottle, that was a tough order for any little league pitcher. Jeff became the Dodgers’ designated walker. Each time he came to the plate, his teammates would start yelling, “Make it be good, Jeff. Remember the strike zone. Don’t swing at anything bad.”
Any Little Leaguer can tell you that kind of encouragement means, “If you swing at anything whatsoever, you are dead meat!”
This worked fine most of the time, but Johnny Bricker was the Indians’ pitcher in 1956. Johnny was the only kid who ever struck out Jeff Walters, as far as I know. Johnny had excellent control on his fast ball, and he had a good curve ball. Not too many 12-year-olds can throw a good curve. He also threw a change-up that was best described as a palm ball. He would take a big wind-up and throw this little change-up much like one might throw a shot-put.
We were one run ahead when Jeff Walters came to the plate in the top of the sixth. He squeezed his 26-inch bat and went into that banty hen stance. He was squatted down so low a lizard could have tapped him on the shoulder.
Johnny squinted toward home plate, trying to find a strike zone. The count was three balls and no strikes before a little curve dropped in for a strike. The next pitch was a fastball for another strike. Then Johnny did the unexpected.
He dished up that big looping change-up, and Jeff bit on it. He started swinging when the pitch was halfway to the plate and was still flailing the air when the ball reached the catcher.
I think Jeff could have hit that pitch if he’d had one more swing at it, but the ump called him out before that. His teammates were devastated.
No one blamed the little guy, though. How could they? If any of us had been standing there, watching pitches go by all summer, I’m sure we would have done exactly the same thing.
Readers with questions or comments for Roger Pond may write to him in care of this publication.
This farm news was published in the Sept. 19, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
| 9/19/2007 |
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