Tag Archives: old

SPRING TRAINING

9 Mar

Spring Training for the Premier League started last week.  It is time for another season, time to crank it up, again, one more time.  I have been telling myself I am done for 10 years.  I am dramatic, I know, can’t help it, I am, after all, the King of All Jewish Baseball – comes with the territory.  But, the pain is real, and I know I do not have a lot left in the tank.  Couple years at best.  If I can get to 38, I’ll be lucky, I already am.  Every year, every practice, every game, between every pitch, sometimes, I tell myself, this is it, you’re old, and stupid, you could blow a knee on the next play, and that’s it, it’s over, stay focused, stay lose, anything could happen, a bad hop, broken orbital, this guy could pop-up a ball in foul territory, over the mound in the bullpen, you could trip, crash, slip, some people can’t even walk, they’re in hospitals, better make the most of this shit while you can.  You’d never know from watching me play.  I look like I am having fun.  And I am, sometimes.  But mostly I am horrified.  It is a mix of habit, excitement, and fear.

I try to get to the field early, before everyone else.  Don’t like being only a little early, or late, it’s unsettling.  Practice starts at 7.   Change, in the dugout, or in the bleachers, and get warmed up.  Run from the right field line to the center field fence, and back.  Do your dynamics.  My heart rate is going up.  Shit.  My hip hurts.  Remember to do your hip exercises.  Stretch.  Core.  Band work.  Weighted ball.  Throw.  Get it right.  Every time.  make it feel right.  Keep your effort level down.  It’s early.  Take it easy on your arm.  Be smooth.  Breath.

Time for defense.  Short hops.  Bare hand work.  Take a bucket of ground balls.  Get there.  I’m tired.  Shit.  My legs are heavy.  Breath.

Let’s hit.  Tee work.  Mini whiffles.  Flips in the cage.  Concentrate.  Be natural, like a lefty.  Don’t worry about the ball in.  You can cover the inner half, look for the ball away.  Keep it simple.  It’s easy.  Just get your foot down and make sure you’re in a good spot to pull the trigger. Don’t over-stride.  Breath.

I feel good.  Too good.  It scares me.  I feel fast, and strong.  I don’t want to feel good now and feel like shit later, when it counts.  But there is nothing I can do about it.  Just get there and do the work.

It is insane.  The brutishness.  The trying.  I am different on the field.  Get me warmed-up, and I am an animal, playing in dirt, diving face first.  Then, when I cool off, it hurts, all of it, the knees, the shoulders, the back, mostly, and I know, I am almost done.  Don’t hit too much in the cage, save some bullets, like Thome.  And this is what I do– nay, what we do, still, the same thing we have done since we were kids.  I will bleed, it will hurt, not too bad, and I will die a little on that field, over and over again, gladly.

It is, after all, time for another baseball season.  And anything can happen…

1422627_10152111445132533_855136418_n

Let’s go.

Tags: , , , , , ,

34

2 Jan

It is 2014.  So allow me to take this opportunity to selflessly grant you and your family a Happy New Year.  Though it is unlikely, may you enjoy health and riches, as I do.

But not only is it a new year, another, more important, holiday is upon us, my birthday.  Despite thinking of me, often, I know, as an omnipresent gaseous cloud with the ability to shape shift and occupy the body of any sentient being, I am a real a man, with a real date of birth.

My birthday, as Sovereign Ruler of All Jewish Baseball, my numerology, if you will, was carefully calibrated by the MANY AND JUST GODS OF JEWISH BASEBALL, and, naturally, I was assigned the perfect day to be born, a new year, a new baby– almost perfect.  Like everyone, as the year changes, so does my age.  But not like everyone, because of the year I was born, 1980, my age changes to the same number as the year.  For example, the day it became the year 2000, I turned 20.  Think of it like an eclipse.

But no! The Gods changed their minds, messed up, lost track of the days, and instead of the perfect birthday, January 1st, I was born on the 2nd, the forgotten day, the day that is not a day, the Day The Earth Weeps, the day we go back to school, or work, the REAL 1st day of the year.  Celebrating a birthday on January 2nd is like going for a jog the day after running the New York City Marathon.  And so this was my destiny, the boy without a birthday.

But I did not come here to divulge the mathematical secrets of my powers, or complain, though I have.  I came to say that I, King of All Jewish Baseball, professional blogger and dancer, the greatest exaggerator of all time, am getting old.  This year, it becomes 2014, and I become, do the math, 2 + 0 + 1 = 3, add the 4… 34.  My projected rookie season in the Major Leagues, according to this Ouija Board, will be in 2018, at 38, a bit later than planned, but still pretty good.

So, I have 4 years to get ready.  I think I am on track, have a  good pace going.  I Cross Fit 3 days a week with the National Team.  I sleep with my concubines submerged in a flotation tank inside a hyperbolic chamber full of Dead Sea Mud.  And I receive a full blood transfusion every 3 months, like Bartolo Colon, where all my blood is drained, mixed with the blood of 1,000 lambs and Madonna’s tears, and injected back into my lifeless flesh.  And I am good for 90 days.

And with this modest routine and prophecy I enter my 34th year on the planet, if my memory serves correct, suffering, striving, with you, ready to the lead the many millions of JEWISH BASEBALL WARRIORS, and readers, of course, into the grand future past post Y2K pre apocalyptic millennial era.

Follow. Your. Dreams.

Follow your dreams.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,