B is for Baseball ~ April 2, 2018

Speaking of contenders, the Mister aka B was an all-star baseball player.

I know you’re thinking … yeah right, sure he was J-Dub.  We also hear tale that the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale. Pfft! As if 🙂

I am talking about CYO here peeps. CYO is the Catholic school equivalent of little league. His coaches were just kids about the same age … maybe a little older than Lulu is now. They were getting degrees in kinesiology when they started coaching his team. He learned so much from those young men, more than just the mechanics of baseball.

Po Po (B’s dad) tells the story of one particular game where B came through in the clutch. It was the last game of the season and the winners would be named the first place team. The St. Benedict’s Pirates (B’s team) were only 5th graders playing in the 5th and 6th grade bracket. Beating the upper class team was a blow.

B was stealing home with a run that would have tied things up. The ball was thrown to the catcher and the out seemed likely. Instead, B went airborne over the catcher and landed on home plate. He was not tagged. The crowd went crazy. Po Po kept repeating no one could believe it, B just leap frogged over the catcher and was called safe. B never did anything like that ever again.  That run was his 15 minutes of fame.

Urban legend. Maybe? But still makes for a good story doesn’t it? Check out these kiddos.  This was their year … 1975!

When he got to high school, the coaches were psyched.  He was recruited as much as a high school player could be.  They put him at first base … because he was tall.  He had never played first base before.  He hated it.  He wanted to go back out to center field.

He claimed he didn’t need a cut off.  With his arm, he could throw from center field to home plate.  I am sure in the olden days, the field dimensions were not the same as today.  Like in a pick up game, you get what you get and in that context, maybe he could and did … throw all the way from center field to home plate.  Or more urban legend?  He didn’t try out again his sophomore year.  That was it for baseball.   He was never gonna make the big leagues anyway.

Besides Ag as in Agricultural Science was the elective of his future.  The judging teams were calling his name.  He was in the newspaper multiple times for placing.  While we are grocery shopping, he will occasionally take the eggs out of the carton and give them the once over making comments like almost a grade A.  He still has that chicken egg judging technique. Lol!

As always, more to come.

This post was written as part of Blogging From A to Z April (2018) Challenge.

Post Numero Dos.