Pride of the Al's Hardware and Lumber Yard Yankees

With the weather warming up and baseball officially in full gear, I took time Monday to head to the indoor batting cages in town.

I like it there because there's at least the appearance of athletic activity, as it's open year round and it lets you bring your own bat in. Try that at a mini-golf with pitching machines and the cops get called.

For the record, the most organized baseball games I've played in were Sunday nights before the lights were turned out at Hamlin Park, but then I got a job and had to worry about being up for work and it all kind of fell by the wayside. It also got to the point that guys were bringing catcher's gear and that seemed a bit competitive for my tastes, so it was OK in the end.

Long story, short - I suck at baseball. I love it, understand it, obsess over it (honestly, I can't see highlights of 2004 without welling up for unknown reasons. This happened this afternoon) but I am really not that good at it. I can pitch, but that's thanks to bio-mechanics more than talent. When you have arms like an ape, it's easy to get a ball over the plate because there's plenty of time to correct your release points and arm slots - trust me.

This brings us to yesterday, when I walk up to the counter to get tokens for the cages and the lady asks me what speeds to turn on. I tell her slooooow (having wasted $5 to $20 an outing this winter in swinging strikes) because I have no pride. Or balls. No pride or balls.

She turns on the 30 and 45 miles-an-hour machines, which is fine, because I'm just looking to shake off some rust, concentrate on my swing and undo bad habits fostered by a winter of goofing around in the living room while on the phone.

The 45 was about right, but I'm hearing the backstop way too much and I move down to the super slow cage. The main problem is that this is for little kids and they have much lower strike zones than say, oh, a 6-3 full-grown male. Yeah.

For the uninitiated, there are usually four-foot square scraps of heavy leather behind the batters to stop the balls you miss from hitting the cage and bouncing back at the back of your skull. The flipside of this is that ever pitch you miss makes an unmistakable "Whump!" behind you.

I see a kid come in as I'm taking a break and stretching out my back halfway through and think, "Crap, it's going to suck if he wants to split time in the cage. It's embarrassing and I'll be here longer than I'd like."

Not a problem, as the kid saunters by, goes two speeds higher and gets in his cage.

Another unmistakable sound in the batting cage? Aluminum bat on ball, over and over again. It kind of sounds like "little kid beating your ass," mixed with, "Well, guess my athletic prime is long gone or never was."