Opening Day

Yesterday was opening day for me. I’d missed the first baseball game of the year for my team because of work travel, and last week was a rainout. I was hoping to play yesterday as I’m gone for the next two weeks and then we have the Mother’s Day break. I’ve resigned myself to playing part time this year, but I still want to play as much as I can.

The weather held out, and after dropping Delaney off at 7:30am for an FBLA trip to Vail, I headed to the field. I know a number of people were unavailable, but I figured we’d have plenty. I was just hoping I had the chance to play infield. I arrived as the #8 person, and we were concerned we might not have 9. A guy showed up at the last minute, and we were set. Stretching, a little throwing were my warm-ups before taking a few swings.

I was in the #2 slot and a little worried. This year, actually since last Aug, I’ve had exactly one throwing session in the cage and an hour of batting practice. Not much. Fortunately the first guy struck out, taking off some pressure from me. Facing a pitcher I’ve known for years, I missed a couple swings, let one go, and then laid into a curve that was dropping in for a double down the line. I was stuck on second and that ended the inning.

I walked out for the bottom of the first looking around at where people were going. Our manager was out of town and the fill in hadn’t listed positions, or I hadn’t seen them. I noticed no one going to shortstop, including the new guys, so I guess that was my position. Not a good way to start the season when I hadn’t fielded a ground ball.

It worked out well. I saw an easy liner in the 3rd or 4th I caught, and picked up a ground ball to get a force at second. I backed up the third baseman and stopped a ball from going into the outfield, though I didn’t field it clean. I picked up a slow roller behind the pitcher’s mound, but then threw it low late in the game and the guy at first didn’t pick it up. All in all a decent game at short, but not much activity.

At the plate I was called out on a 3rd strike I thought was outside, but probably close enough to swing at. However with the shorter bat, I couldn’t have reached it, so it was moot. I hit a hard liner down to first, but since the guy was standing on the bag, holding on the runner, he caught it. 1-3, not bad, not great.

A rough game. I think it was 17 or 18-1 at the end, in 7 innings. We didn’t put much together, had a number of outfield errors, and no good swings at the plate. Hopefully the next one will get better.