One of our guiding principals here at Baseballisms is the fact that we live in a digital age that provides us with tools to preserve our history in the making.  The game of baseball is built upon continuity (mostly, but that’s another story) and legacies at all levels.  How many of you remember the name of the kid who was the all-star flamethrower in your Little League? And how many of you cherish the memory of getting that big hit off of him?  If you grew up prior to our current digital age, what you have are memories, there is only a slim chance of a recorded history of your baseball career.

That is no longer the case. Kids of today’s era might as well have highlight reels on YouTube that they can re-live forever.  This post is born out of  jealousy, but also as a warning to never take this capability for granted.  The 1′s and 0′s preserved on a drive somewhere will increase in personal value over time. They must be preserved and nurtured through the years and the payoff will come when those special moments can be shared with others.  Do not get fooled by the cheap medium, cheap storage and plethora of content … the value to you is actually immeasurable.

So here you go, my entire baseball playing career boiled down to a 37 second video captured on an 8 mm camera that my Dad owned.  It was taken at the 1975 Little League All-Star Game played at the “Green Fence Field” in Lexington Massachusetts. My love of lineup introductions during the postseason was born in this moment, when we got to wear the ceremonial gold and blue hats with an L adorned by two stars, while we stood along the third base line for introductions.

I was a catcher for a team called Toronto and loved playing the position (except for getting pinged by the occasional foul tip – man I feel for those guys). You can see me handle three pitches at the beginning of the video. As is pretty typical for playing at that age, one of my best skills was an ability to get in the way of balls that didn’t exactly find the strike zone. I laugh when I think about how hard I worked at breaking in my catcher’s mitt. It was more likely to deflect than to softly cradle the incoming pitch.  I sure wish I had that catcher’s mitt today.

The rest of the video is dedicated to the one at-bat that I had before giving way to another catcher from another team.  Where that hitch in my swing came from I’ll never know, and is not indicative of how I remember the thousands of other moments at the plate.  The end result is consistent however. I guess I would have been considered a high OBP guy if they thought of things like that back then. I hit a lot of balls up the middle and took alot of walks. No power.

It is kind of funny how memories work though.  I can instantly call to mind numerous plays on the field .. scrambling to catch a low pop foul, moving the target around on batters during Jr. High tryouts that I believe won me the spot on the roster, throwing a runner out at second on the Bowman School field … but I don’t remember this All Star Game from the perspective of the moment.  I have the memories that this video represents, but not the physical and emotional aspects like those other memories possess.

In a sense, I hope that today’s always on camera kids don’t end up with diminished memories simply because they have handy digital recall. That would be sort of a shame.

How about you?  Do you have any ancient video that you can share with us?  Drop us a link and tell us about it.

Baseball fan Floyd Sullivan’s email submission to Baseballisms.com reprinted with permission.

A Friend of Baseballisms, Floyd Sullivan, is the author of Waiting for the Cubs.  Floyd graciously submits this true story from his days as a youth baseball coach.  We would like to take this opportunity to thank Floyd for all of his contributions to the Baseballisms community and look forward to many more stories about his devotion to the game he loves.   You can find Floyd on Facebook.

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No one saw him arrive at the field.  He stared at us from the sidewalk that separates the lakeside park from busy Sheridan Road on Chicago’s far North Side.  At first I thought he was too old to play on our tee ball team, and so paid little attention to him.  He stood a head taller than the other kids, and I had my hands full with a dozen or so third and fourth graders running wild around the dirt diamond.

After about ten minutes of letting the team kick up a cloud of infield dust, I called for them to gather at the chain link backstop.  The tall boy now stood on the grass, a few feet closer to the first base dugout. I noticed that he held a mitt close to his left side, and his long, curly, sandy blond hair stuck out in all directions from under a brand new Cub hat that was a little too big and so rested just above his eyes and behind his ears.  He wore a crisp, maroon Loyola University sweat shirt, blue jeans so spotless they looked dry cleaned, and a pair of top-of-the-line Nike athletic shoes, charcoal gray without a hint of mud.

“Okay,” I shouted, “settle down.  Let’s see who’s here and who’s late.”  I checked names against the roster supplied by the Chicago Park District.  The tall boy watched.  Each team member answered “Here!” when I called his name, except two.  I repeated those names and tried to keep my eye on the tall boy, who had edged a few feet closer.  But he still showed no sign that one of the names was his.

One more time.  I bellowed the two names so they could be heard across the street.  The tall boy’s right arm moved slightly.  I took a couple of steps toward him and asked, “Are you one of the two kids I’m missing here?”

He nodded once, his chin dipping just slightly toward his chest.

“Come on over and join the team.”

He approached but stopped a few steps from the group.  Up close, his hair, face and hands looked as fresh and unsoiled as his new clothes.  Someone had gotten him all ready for something, but that someone was nowhere to be seen.

“Now that all but one of us is here,” I said, “I’d like to welcome you all to the Indians.”

“Indians?” said one of the kids.  “Why can’t we be the Cubs?”

“Why can’t we be the Sox?” asked another.

“Sorry, fellas,” I replied.  “Those names were taken.”

“How come you didn’t take one of them?” asked a short boy who stood right in front of me, his feet spread and his arms crossed.

Great, I thought.  A punk with attitude.  I wanted to reply, “All the good players were taken, too!” but let it drop.

It was true, though.  We had moved to the Edgewater/Rogers Park area a couple of years before and so had trouble finding the right dates, the right park and the right field house for signing up our son Steve for his first year of organized baseball.  We were lucky to get him on a team at all as registration had formally closed a few days before we stood in front of the Park District official who handled the baseball leagues, Steve and three of his friends from the block looking on with hopeful young faces.

“Well,” he said, pushing a faded Sox hat to the back of his almost bald head, “you’re in luck.  See, we got a bunch of kids that wasn’t quite enough for a team. Now with these four, we have enough for a sixth team, which is what we was looking for all along.” He smiled.

“That’s great,” I replied.

“So I can contact all these parents that’ve been waiting to hear if we had space for their kids.  They’re gonna be very happy.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“By the way, you ever coach tee ball?” he asked as he completed a set of official Park District forms.

“No.”

“Ever play organized baseball?”

“Little League.”

“Ever coach any sport at all?”

“Girls basketball.”

He looked up at me and frowned.  “Well, we got the players for that sixth team but we got no coaches.  The other five teams are all set, but we can’t let these kids of yours play without a manager, can we?  How about it?”

“Will I have to manage the team alone?”

“No no no.  Not at all.  I’ll give you this roster with phone numbers and you can call the other parents and ask for help when you let them know their kids are on a team.  Shouldn’t be a problem.”

I soon learned that “The other five teams are all set” meant that team number six, the Indians, would be made up of latecomers like us, and kids no one else wanted.  After an hour of practice I figured we had maybe four kids who could actually throw, catch and swing a bat, two who were almost too small to hold a bat, a few who looked athletic enough to pick up the rudiments of the game, the tall boy who I was sure never played baseball before in his life, and a boy named Quentin who had no mitt.

“I forgot it,” he mumbled that first afternoon, staring at his well-worn Keds high tops.  His socks didn’t quite match, and I wasn’t sure if his frayed khakis were dirt gray or tan-turned-dirt gray.  He wore no cap.

“No problem,” I said.  “You can borrow mine today.  It’s probably a little too big for you, but better than nothing.”

Quentin smiled, took my mitt, shoved his hand into it, keeping his index finger on the outside, and pounded the pocket.  A good sign, I thought.  Even if he didn’t own a mitt, maybe he knew how to use one.

On the way home that evening Steve’s mom suggested that we stop at the Venture on Peterson Avenue and pick up a new mitt for the family, one that would be available for team members who might, from time to time, forget their own.  To this day, twenty years later, we call that mitt the “Quentin mitt.”

The Park District rules dictated that no score would be tallied during tee ball league games.  The kids were on the field to learn the game, sportsmanship and teamwork – not win or lose.  Parents and some coaches embraced this philosophy.  For instance, our assistant manager Linda, the mother of one of the littler players, told me on the first day that she believed each boy should play every position.  I agreed in principle.

After basic throwing, catching and hitting drills one afternoon before our schedule began, we divided the team in two for a practice game.  We didn’t keep score, but as we packed up to leave for the day, I overheard two of the kids talking.

“We killed ‘em.”

“Yeah.  I think it was, like, twelve to four.”

“Yeah.  That’s what I got, too.”

So much for the purity of the game.

A week later we arrived at the park for our first league game.  I remembered from my little league years that the best kids played third, first, shortstop, catcher, left and center field.  The littlest guys played second so they wouldn’t have to throw the ball too far, and players who couldn’t catch or throw played right field because nobody hit the ball to right field.

Since batters hit off a tee in our league, the pitcher’s position would also be played by either a little kid, or someone who didn’t field too well.  Likewise, the catcher didn’t need to catch, so we would play someone there who wouldn’t be challenged too often.

Steve played first.  His friend Ben was at third and Ben’s little brother Danny, who was small but skilled, covered the right side of the infield at second base.

The tall boy played right.  After a week and a half of drills and tryouts at every position on the field, he was still late to the ball and afraid of it.  He said little and never complained.  When taught the fundamentals of hitting or catching, mostly “keep your eye on the ball,” he would knit his brows and nod as if he understood, but then tighten up at his position and either weakly wave his mitt at the ball or get out of its way entirely.  We would have liked to discuss his lack of progress with a parent, but he always arrived and left alone.

I asked Steve and the boys from the block to make a special effort to include him in the normal joking and joshing around, but the tall boy would remain apart, smiling but not knowing how to accept their overtures.

We played our first game against the best team in the league.  We didn’t know this until they pummeled us without mercy, piling up the runs that weren’t supposed to be tallied.  There could be no slaughter rule because there was no score, so we suffered through an entire six-inning game of pure humiliation.

As we drove home, Steve and his friends, sitting across the back seat of our brown Taurus wagon, said little until we approached our block on Hermitage Avenue.

“I think we got eight,” said Ben.

“Yeah,” said Steve, “but they got about thirty-eight.”

“Forty-one,” said Danny.

For our second game we moved the players around in the spirit of teaching each kid every position, and got killed again.  On the way home, the three depressed buddies said nothing.  Maybe this time, I thought, they followed the Park District’s rules and didn’t keep score!

Over the course of the first few games, I learned a few things about tee ball strategy:

ONE.  Don’t play your best fielder at third base.  It’s a waste of talent.  At that age no kid will ever throw anyone out at first from all the way across the diamond.

TWO.  As a corollary to item number ONE above, teach your players to hit the ball down the third base line, and never down the first base line, for their best chance of reaching safely.

THREE.  Play one of your best fielders at the pitcher’s position.  In tee ball a large percentage of batters will be lucky to hit the ball that far, so you’ll want a kid in the middle of the diamond who can field a dribbler and throw accurately to first base.

As we warmed up for our fourth game, Linda suggested that we put a certain kid at first because he hadn’t played there yet.

“The kids want to learn every position,” she said.  “They all want to feel important.”

The kid in question was maybe four feet tall and couldn’t catch.  Determined that I wasn’t going to drive home again with three kids ready to quit the team and quit the game and maybe look into joining a street gang, I spoke up.  “True.  But they want to win, too.  And I don’t care what the Park District says, those kids are counting runs and they know they’re getting creamed every game.  We can’t put that boy at first.  He’ll be humiliated.” Linda was taken a little aback, but deferred.

Steve played first base for the entire game.  Okay okay, he was the manager’s son and everyone hates that kind of favoritism, but he was also by far and away the best glove on the team.  Ben went from third to the mound because he could field a grounder and get it to Steve at first.  Danny stayed at second where he was doing just fine.  Quentin was getting used to the “Quentin mitt” and could catch the occasional fly to left, and cut off extra base hits and get the ball back into the infield.

We won.  After the game the kids stood around our dugout laughing and pushing each other in celebration.  The tall boy sat at the end of the bench, watching his teammates.

As the second half of the season progressed, we beat several teams that we had lost to the first time around.  During one practice I watched as Steve, Ben and Danny drilled each other with ground balls, and then got several little kids involved.  Quentin took the tall boy in hand and gave him pointers on catching fly balls. At one point Ben went into a funk and couldn’t throw to first – a Steve Sax kind of syndrome.  Every toss bounced in the dirt in front of Steve and often skirted beyond to the first base bench.

Linda walked up to Ben where he stood on the mound and handed him a ball.  “Can you hit the backstop from here?” she asked.  Ben looked at her for a moment and then drilled the chain link fence with a heater.  “If you can hit the backstop like that, you can throw it to Steve,” she said, and then pointed to our son.  “Get it to him.  He can catch it.” And from then on he did, and from then on, Steve caught it.

After winning the second to the last game of the year, the kids stood jubilant at our bench, beating the pipe and wire that defined our dugout with bats and fists and mitts.  The tall boy stood apart, but smiled and pounded the pocket of his mitt.

Although we kept score in flagrant disobedience of the rules of the league, and knew our own won-and-lost record, there were no official league standings.  But by the end of the season we knew who was who, and for our last game we were scheduled to face the same team we played at the beginning of the season – the team that had run up basketball-like numbers against us.

With our key positions set, we had been moving some of the other players around to give them experience and a sense of their own strengths.  For this last game I put the tall boy at third base where he would get some fielding opportunities and feel like he was more a part of the action, but would do the least damage.

But the other team’s manager had learned the same lessons I had, and they had several big kids who could aim the ball right down the left field line.  I soon realized my mistake.  The tall boy couldn’t field a grounder or catch a liner.  Anything hit his way went through for an extra base hit.

But we were scoring runs, too.  The tall boy plopped one in right center for a double in the fourth, and scored when Ben lined one down the first base line, giving us a two-run lead going into the bottom of the last inning.

Their first batter stepped up to the tee and smashed one past the tall boy.  His coach had schooled him well about our weakness at third so he kept running around the bases.  Quentin fielded the ball cleanly and made a great throw to the tall boy, but he just couldn’t catch.  The ball bounced past him and into foul territory, all the way to the backstop. The hitter ran through third and on to the plate for a home run.

Linda looked at me.  She knew.  They were going to keep hitting the ball at the tall boy until they won.

I checked my scorebook.  The next three hitters were little guys who had trouble making contact. Get them out and it’s over.

The tall boy stayed at third.

It worked.  Two routine plays to Ben later and we were one out away from beating the team that had poured it on and laughed at us at the beginning of the season.  The kids felt it.  They crouched and swayed and beat their mitts and dared the big kids on the other team to hit.  The players on our bench stood and screamed incoherent encouragement to the guys on the field.

The next batter dribbled a roller just out of Ben’s reach for an infield single.

“That’s okay,” yelled Linda.  “We’ll get the next guy!”

But the next guy got on base when our shortstop threw wildly to first.  My fault.  I should have told him to step on second for a force.

I looked across the diamond to the other team’s bench and glanced down at my score book.  The next two hitters had been on base all day.  Linda and I glanced at each other, but I did nothing.

One of their biggest kids strutted to the tee.  He squared off to hit the ball right at the tall boy.  He reared back, bit his lower lip and wailed.  But he was too anxious and hit the tee more than the ball, a loud rubber thrump telling us that we would live to face another hitter, if not win outright.  The ball landed between first and the pitcher’s mound, pulling Steve off the bag.  The batter had no trouble legging it out for a single.

Bases loaded, two out, tying run on third, winning run on second.

The next batter, a huge boy at least twenty pounds heavier than anyone on our team, including me, walked to the tee with calm confidence.  He looked old enough to shave.

Linda stood at the short dugout fence, her arms crossed on the top bar.  She looked down and focused on the dirt below her.  “This kid has hit to third every time,” she said softly, but what she meant was we had put the tall boy in a spot where no matter what happened, whether we replaced him or let him commit the game-ending error, he would be hurt.

I called time and slowly walked to third base.  As the tall boy watched me approach, his shoulders sagged and his face turned ashen.  I put my hands on my knees so my eyes would be level with his, and said, “This kid is going to hit it right to you.”

He nodded, curled his lips and crunched his eyes.

“Here’s what you do.”

He nodded again.

“You knock the ball down, pick it up and step on this base.”  I pointed to the third base bag.  He nodded, made a fist and pounded his mitt, which made me a little nervous because I didn’t want him to try to catch it.  “Knock it down; pick it up; step on the base.  The runner coming down from second will be out and we’ll win.”

He nodded again.  I wasn’t sure he got it, but I patted his shoulder and walked back to the bench, sick to my stomach.

The kids on both benches stood and screamed.  Parents, grandparents and siblings howled their encouragement.  Passersby on the sidewalk stopped to watch.

The big kid squared off and looked out at left field as if scoping a fairway for a par five drive.  He planted his feet on a direct line to the tall boy.  He stared at the ball.  He lined up his bat, pulled it back high above his shoulder and let it rip, drilling a hard one-hopper right down the third baseline.

In the instant it took for the ball to reach him, I noticed that the tall boy had bent at his waist and assumed the best fielder’s crouch of his short career.  He stepped to his right and reaching across his body got his mitt on the ball, playing it like a goalie in a hockey game.  The ball plopped to the ground and died right in front of him.

He glanced at me.  I nodded and mouthed, “Pick it up.”

He picked it up.

The runner on third was half way to the plate; the runner on second barreled down to third.

The tall boy held the ball and looked at his bench.

“Step on the base!  Step on the base!  Step on the base!”

Quick as a dart, he tapped the bag with his now scuffed and muddy Nike-clad right foot.

And thus did the Cubs win the World Series.

Okay, so it was only our pitiful tee ball team, but it felt just as miraculous.

The tall boy’s teammates rushed screaming to third base,  fifteen delirious ballplayers attacking a shy boy and knocking him to the ground in a heap of “yes” and a world of “you did it!”  If they had been big enough they would have lofted him on their shoulders.  Instead they buried him with cheers and hugs and slaps on his back.

Many minutes later, we gathered the team together and congratulated them on their rise from the worst team in the league to a team no one could beat, not even the big boys that had poured it on during our first game.  We told them that they should all be very proud of what they had accomplished.  They responded by asking for a pizza party.

We packed up for the last time.  I looked around for the tall boy, but he was gone.

Author Floyd Sullivan’s submission to Baseballisms.com reprinted with permission. Floyd is the author of the new book Waiting for the Cubs: The 2008 Season, the Hundred-Year Slump and One Fan’s Lifelong Vigil.  Look for a podcast with Floyd coming soon!

Note: I was directed to a blog called The On Deck Circle, written by Bill Miller.  The subject of the blog that day was childhood memories, and the story of a little boy hitting his first home run.  It brought the following back to me as clearly as if it happened yesterday.

The long, narrow, vacant lot across the street lay as an open invitation, almost begging the neighborhood kids to transform it into  a crude playground, or perhaps a ballpark. The big boys on our block in Riverdale, Illinois, saw its potential and created a Wiffle ball field. They made rules so you could play with as few as two on a team. If you hit the ball past the fielder, it was a single. Past a particular bush, a double. Past the apple tree, a triple. And into the high grass way out there, halfway to the alley, a home run. There were no bases. You had to remember where your men-on-base stood on the non-existent diamond.

I was too little to play, but I loved to watch the big boys pitch and swing the bat.

One day, the guys must have been short a player because the older kid who lived almost at the end of the block asked if I wanted to be on his team. Thrilled, I jumped up and took the field. When it came time for our side to bat, he handed me the thin, wooden Wiffle ball bat with fraying black friction tape wrapped around its handle. I stepped up to the “plate,” just a dirt smudge where no grass grew. All I wanted to do was make contact. There was no way I could hit the triple area, let alone the tall grass for a homer.

The pitcher wound up and threw.  The pierced plastic ball picked up the air currents and danced its way toward me like a knuckler. I swung and missed. The next pitch came in a little straighter, so I let up on my swing and felt the clean, full, satisfying vibration of a solid hit. But I had gotten ahead of the ball and pulled it left and foul. It flew over a chain link fence at the corner of a neighbor’s yard.  I was relieved.  If I had hit it straight it would have been a routine fly ball out.

All of sudden my teammate started screaming and patting me on the back. “Way to go! Way to go!”  Even the pitcher and his fielder had to jog to the plate and congratulate me.

“What’d I do?” I asked.

“You got yourself a homer!” said my teammate.

I didn’t know it, but the boys had declared that corner of the fence the “short shelf” of their field.  You had to land the ball just right, and I, without realizing it, had done it.

“Perfectly placed,” said the older kid from the end of the block. “Nobody’s ever hit one there before!”

My first home run, and to this day, over a half century later, the only one I remember.

Floyd

Do you have a story like Floyd’s?  We invite you to share your personal baseball story … Send a Tweet to @baseballisms with a quick message, send us an email or visit our Upload page with a video message.  We look forward to continuing to grow a community of fans interested in Wisdom from the Diamond!

Baseball Fan Robert Harris‘ submission to Baseballisms.com reprinted with permission. Our heroes can let us down some times, but that does not mean that they have lost the passion that burned so hot that they were compelled to pursue the game of baseball.  Robert shares his encounter with one such hero, and we thank him for sending us this story …

A few years ago, I was at a fantasy baseball camp at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida. A number of retired ballplayers were there, but the biggest name of all was Pete Rose. Yes, there are some things he should not have done, but he’s still Charlie Hustle, and his passion for the game still remains.

The moment that sticks out for me was in one of the five games we played over the course of three days. I hadn’t played an actual baseball game in decades, so I was more than a little bit rusty. But I was determined to make contact as much as I could at the plate. I struck out a lot in little league, so this was my long-awaited shot at redemption.

In one of the games, I came up and made a little bit of contact, sending the ball to the second baseman for a routine putout. As I’m running back to the dugout, disappointed in myself, Pete Rose says “Good job” and gives me a fist bump.  Yes, I got a fist bump from Pete Rose. It was amazing.

When I went back and sat down, I realized he wasn’t just doing that to cheer me up. The batter before me had led off the inning with a double, and by grounding out to second, I had succeeded in moving the runner over to third. I also  realized that he saw the game on a level that I didn’t see. Everyone would have liked to crack a base hit through the  infield to bring the run in to score. But by giving myself up (even when I wasn’t trying to), I still managed to help the  team. And it is a team sport, after all.

Over the course of all my at bats (I think there were 17 in all) I only struck out once. So I accomplished what I set out  to do, and had lots of fun doing it. But that fist bump will stick with me forever, especially since I understand why it happened.

Robert

Do you have a story like Robert’s?  We invite you to share your personal baseball story … Send a Tweet to @baseballisms with a quick message, send us an email or visit our Upload page with a video message.  We look forward to continuing to grow a community of fans interested in Wisdom from the Diamond!

This past Sunday was the annual celebration of Father’s Day .. a day to remember dear old dad and to reflect on how much of a presence he is in a child’s life. For generations, the game of baseball has been a common thread in families everywhere, allowing for bonds to be formed during long car rides to practice fields and for rituals to develop during games played at all levels. Getting to know Dad through sharing his passion for a game is a formative influence on a son or daughter.

The same can be said for music, particularly the type of music that has been nurtured and shared on country porches in the hills and valleys across the land. Sometimes the music can assist in telling histories and passing legends from generation to generation. It can be known as the Blues, it’s also known as Bluegrass, sometimes all encompassing known as Americana – but it’s ALWAYS known as authentic.

Here at Baseballisms we were honored this past Saturday night, the night before Father’s Day, to have been allowed a chance to capture some stories from a seminal force in the world of Americana music, and one who is widely known for his passion for baseball – Sam Bush.

…. and we are extremely humbled by the fact that the previous day, Sam’s father Charlie had passed away at the age of 89.

We will forever be thankful to Sam, for giving his time and for sharing with us a glimpse into his childhood, for speaking about his dad, … and for painfully recalling an intimidating opposing pitcher from his Little League days.

Make sure to check out More Wisdom from Sam Bush in Part Two of his baseballism.

Check out Sam on tour when he’s in your area .. and chances are you’ll catch him wearing some authentic team jersey.

If you have a story like Sam’s to share, please visit our Upload page. We look forward to receiving it!

During the summer of 1975, while the Red Sox were thrilling Beantown with a team that according to Bill Nowlin, would go on to save baseball, a team of neighborhood kids banded together to rule the Lexington Summer League.

Stacking up some strong pitching performances with a fun cast of characters, these boys went on to collect their pride and joy championship jackets.

Budgets and stitching technologies in those days limited the per jacket costs the league was willing to spend, but this one was top notch!

In this baseballism, we hear directly from 7-year old Ryan about his Little League walk off homerun. His telling of the story is now a captured to replay & enjoy over and over again. Watch his excitement as he tells of the shot – and his journey around the bases – with two runners on and two runs down in the last inning of the game.

Also, keep an eye out in the background for a great stab of a line drive by the second baseman at the :50 second mark!

In this Baseballism, we get to hear Chris’s pitch by pitch account of his at bat versus Bill Lee in the Roy Hobbs Masters Baseball Tourney. Seems that Cameron had replaced “hit the ball” with “got a hit” as he remembered the story… no big deal, because it’s still great to picture a couple of years ago, Bill Lee coming in from shortstop to buzz a high heater at the first batter he faces.