It was a throwaway fluff story for a slow day at Spring Training. Gabe Kapler and the Giants coaches thought of a new wrinkle in pitcher hitting drills. They called it "fungo golf." The pitchers tossed the ball in the air fungo style and hit it as close to a cup placed in the outfield as possible. Then they jogged out to their ball and "putted" it to the targeted cup. After that, they fungoed it back to the infield. I didn't catch how many times that cycle was repeated.
Reading that reminded my of my childhood. There was a huge open field behind our house. We lived way out in the hills and there weren't a lot of kids to play with. To entertain myself, I would take a bat and ball(I had just one baseball) and headed out to the field where I would hit it fungo style, chase it down, bring it back and hit it again. My game was to pretend I was the Giants lineup. I would hit righty for righthanded batters in the lineup and lefty for lefthanded batters. If I was really ambitious I would also pretend to the an opposing team lineup like the Dodgers or Cardinals and have innings. I counted line drives as hits, grounders and pop-ups were outs. If I hit it high and deep, it was a home run.
There was no opportunity to play organized baseball out there and I wasn't really athletic enough anyway. I was quite proud that I was able to hit just as well lefthanded as my natural righthanded stance in playground pickup games, a skill which came from my imaginary games in that old oat field behind our house.
great story. thanks for sharing. i am so lefthanded that batting righty would feel like a superpower!
ReplyDeleteWe played aluminum foil baseball in my backyard as kids. There were five of us neighbor kids and we set up a whole season schedule. Each game was a one on one game with a third one of us as umpire. We had distance markers painted on the property line fence. We used wadded up aluminum foil that we would form into balls with a hammer to make them hard and used a croquet mallet handle as a bat. You threw the ball at the runner to get them out and of course a ball into the neighbors yard was a homerun. It was always fun to hear the neighbor run over the balls in his yard with his mower and then the associated swear words that came with it as it shredded aluminum foil all over his yard, but he was cool with it. People used to tolerate kids and their games. If we argued with the "umpire" we would get fined 25 cents which would be saved up to buy more aluminum foil. I think this is where I learned to be a switch hitter and could throw an awesome submarine pitch. We usually would have the Giants game on the radio during our games and sometimes the parents and siblings and other friends would form an audience in folding chairs. Great way to pass the summer.
ReplyDeleteIn an unrelated but nonetheless quite amusing aside, the Giants just claimed Jordan Humphreys off of waivers from the Indians, who had done the very same thing when the Giants dfa'd Humphreys in November. Farhan was plainly trying to slip him through waivers back then and the Indians were trying to do the same thing here. This being a situation where the Giants had actually given value (Billy Hamilton) for Humphreys in the first place, I think Farhan may be serving notice that if you prevent him from passing one of his guys through waivers, don't expect to pass the same guy through waivers on your own account. Perhaps it would be different if Farhan has claimed the guy from someone else originally but that wasn't the case here. It seems likely to me that Farhan will do the same with Humphreys here but will wait until the tail end of spring training when it is harder for other teams to fit such players onto their roster.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting...
DeleteGrowing up in San Francisco, there wasn't a lot of open space but this was back in the days when public schools did not lock their gates after hours so the neighborhood kids could go into the schoolyard anytime. We played a game called "Strike Out" in which we drew a chalk strike zone on a wall of the elementary school building and a pitcher's mound on the asphalt. A ball in the air that fell uncaught past the infield was a single, past the distance of the foursquare court was a double, past the basketball hoop was a triple, and over the fence was a homer. We used a tennis ball since no one wanted to get beaned by a hardball. The best pitchers succeeded by simply pumping high fastballs by everyone. My fastball might have touched double digits and my breaking ball probably had a spin rate of 50 rpm so I was often nearly undressed by comebackers a la Charlie Brown. We spent many a summer afternoon playing Strike Out until sundown... good times... thanks for jogging those memories, Doc!
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