By Neil T.
Editor’s note – This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com on February 5, 2002.
I promise this has something to do with baseball, and not just my children. Bear with me.
I have two children. Austin is my daughter. She’s 15 and she’s Ivy League smart, very pretty, and very talented. She is more fun to go to a baseball game with than anyone I know. She yells with joy at every strike and despises the wave.
My son, Andy, is 10. Andy is sweet, and as patient as Job. He is also dyslexic, dysgraphic (who knew there was something called dysgraphia?), and ADD, though not the hyperactive kind. He also has a beautiful swing, a good glove, some size, and some speed. He will never make the honor roll, but he’s liked by his classmates, works hard, is kind and thoughtful, and fearless on the base paths.
This is Andy’s 4th year of little league. This year he moves up to kid pitch.
Batting is not the hardest thing in sports for Andy. Watching his swing is all joy. The glove, too, is easy for him. Andy’s problem is learning to throw the ball.
Think about how counter-intuitive throwing is. There are a thousand mechanical imperatives: where your shoulder turns, how you grip the seams, how your ball hand drops and then raises, where your eyes look. Since his first day of little league Andy has thrown sidearm. It’s more work to raise the elbow, but at 10 the most likely destination of a sidearm throw is 5 feet to the right of the target.
At least if you’re left handed, and along with the dyslexia, dysgraphia, and ADD, Andy is left handed.
To cure his slinging sidearm, Andy has worked to learn to tuck his glove. At the end of a throw, his glove should rest tucked against his chest. By not dropping his glove arm, he should have better balance. By adding opposing force, he should increase power. He also has a better chance of protecting against a line drive to the face. Most of all, though, if Andy tucks his glove he is more likely to come over the top.
Now unfortunately Andy tucks all the time. Think of a pitcher in a wind-up. A pitcher lifts his glove leg, then as the pitcher’s glove leg drops, the ball and glove hands also drop. The glove foot moves forward as the ball hand moves up and the glove hand moves out towards the target. But Andy’s glove hand no longer moves out. It rushes straight to the tuck. Imagine the precarious balance of a one-armed pitcher and you can imagine how awkward Andy looks when he throws.
If Andy were right handed, maybe it wouldn’t matter. But left handers are cursed with pitching. The first thing a left-handed kid hears when he picks up a ball is that he should pitch. And now Andy must pitch, or not pitch.
Andy’s first season, way back in fall t-ball, he played shortstop. That spring he played first base, then he moved to second base for a spring, then to third for a fall, and finally last spring he spent a season as catcher. Except for third base, which was uneventful, and shortstop, which no lefthander should ever be asked to play, they all had their moments. Catcher was maybe the most fun, and he was very good. But tonight his new coach asked me, he played catcher last year? But he throws left? Left handers don’t catch. Left handers don’t play second or third. Left handers play the field if they can run, or first if they can’t.
Or best of all they pitch.
Pravata said recently that little league is not the majors, and he’s right in a way, but like all complicated things he’s also wrong. Somewhere in little league Craig Biggio first learned to run the base paths, Jeff Bagwell learned that wacko stance, and Barry Bonds hit his first home run. Roger Clemens surely pitched in little league, and I’m sure his dad wondered if he would ever consistently put the ball over the plate. What those kids learned then is some of what they walk onto the field with now. I would even suggest that in some ways what they did then was as spectacular as what they do now.
I read a quote recently by the poet Donald Hall, about how baseball connects American males through generations. When I watch the Astros, I see them through my favorite player, who is 4 foot 8 and 90 pounds. In content, professional baseball may not be little league. Subjectively though, through the context of my own eye, they’re both the same, or at least part of the same thing. When I see baseball, I always see Andy and what I’ve learned from him about the game. I hope that someday he sees me in the game, and thinks of what he learned from me. I hope he likes what he sees as much as I do.
My goals for Andy are very modest. He’s got a lot of things on his plate, and I want him to know that he’s very good at something. I want him to be a valuable team member. I want him to have a choice about playing high school ball. Maybe Andy pitches this year, maybe he doesn’t, it all comes down to an upcoming tryout. For the first time he’s on a good team with some older kids and several kids his age who are as good or better than he is. If he pitches, I know he’s going to bang a bunch of right-handed batters’ shins if he lets his elbow drop. I also know that as a father, I can’t do more than watch, play a lot of catch, and try not to remind him too often to get his glove out before he tucks.