What was your greatest moment?

Posting this message, right now, is my greatest moment.

Freshmen year of high school: I was trying out for the Frosh/Soph baseball team in the outfield and one of the fly balls went back, back, back and I made a leap grab while banging into the fence. Best of all, I made that catch in front of the coaches and the rest of the tryout group. Aaron Rowand would be proud. Also like Aaron Rowand, I couldn’t hit.

Though, I did end up making the team as a backup outfielder and a pinch runner.

I was involved in other school activities (band, newspaper, etc.) and my coach was an asshole and benched me in favor of a less talented SS who didn’t do anything else in school but baseball. He proceeded to his like .200 and make an error a game while I ate about sixty pounds of sunflower seeds. He missed practice unannounced, so my coach had no choice but to start me. My first AB in six weeks was a bases-loaded triple. I ended the game 3-4 with 5 RBI, and a good feeling of revenge.

Coming in a close second was pitching 10 innings in a league game against Alameda. The game went 14, but I gave up 1 run, K’d 9 with no BB, and only threw 100 pitches.

It was when a very drunken groug caught a line drive for the last out of a hotly contested sloshball game.

Tough one. I was a team-first type of player so I will go with this: My junior year in HS we won the CCS Championship to cap off our 26-4 season (18-0 in league). Great memories.

Though my best individual performance I can remember was a 4 for 5 with 2 HR’s, 2B, 1B, 4 RBI in a pre-league game in JUCO ball.

/digs through closet and laces up my spikes.
/single tear falls

In Little League, when I actually made contact with the ball that one time.

a single, a hit by pitch and an infield single in front of me.

1-1 pitch and I crack one to the left-center gap, an oppo game winning hit. I almost missed first base.

Junior year I hit a go-ahead home run during CIF.

defensive moments are mysteriously missing from memory. I was Russell Branyan-esque at third base.

Individual: In regionals for 11-12 year old all-stars I had a walk-off double to win the game 3-2.

Team: In the same tournament (2 games later, against the same team actually) a teammate hit a walk-off grand slam. I had just struck out with the bases loaded and was near tears in the dugout.

After those two games we really thought we were going to Williamsport. Then we lost the next day. Still one of the best summers of my life.

Once in grade school during PE, I hit a towering home run over the playground fence. No one expected it at all, myself included. Every game we played after that, fielders would take a few steps back whenever I came to bat. I never hit another home run again.

I stole that base once

We were playing a weird game of baseball, where you could choose to hit or throw the ball. It was the bottom of the last inning, and we were down by 2 with a man on 1st and 3rd, and I chose to throw. My comrades starting yelling their heads off at me, telling me to hit it, but I took a running start and hurled it over that playground wall. Pretty cool.

Sixth grade, I think, playing softball at some huge class picnic. Of course, I was one of the nerdy kids with no penchant for athletics at all. I come up to bat. The kid pitching turns around and tells everyone “Infield in! Infield in!” All the infielders -and the outfielders too – come in.

I drill the ball over everyone’s head and circle the bases for a home run. I hear a couple of guys on my team mock the pitcher: “Infield in! Infield in!” Hahahahahaha. Go suck it, pitcher.

but in grade school (7th grade) I took a PE class as an elective because I thought I’d ever need to learn Spanish (!) or French. We were played baseball in this class, except not with a baseball – with a volleyball. The teacher pitched.

I didn’t much like this teacher. She was also my social studies teacher and we didn’t see eye to eye on much.

Anyway, we were playing this game I thought I’d show off my switch hitting skills and bat left-handed. The teacher lobbed one in there and I hit a smoking line drive right off her face! I hit it harder than I’d probably ever hit a real baseball.

I’m sure that sucked for her, but I thought it was hilarious and just generally awesome, like I was getting back at her for all of the kids she’d messed with. She was alright, no broken nose or anything. No blood. But it sure was shocking to witness. That part is kinda amazing in and of itself. But, I’ll never forget it. That will forever be my greatest “baseball” triumph.

Playing games of pickup baseball in the neighborhood. I grew up around all boys and we’d spend entire summers playing baseball in the street. One of those games I clobbered a ball so far we couldn’t find it. It was both awesome and bad, because that was our last ball. Yes, it sounds much like The Sandlot when Smalls hits his stepfather’s Babe Ruth ball into the neighbor’s yard, but we used tennis balls because they went really really far and took interesting bounces of the pavement.

Now that I’m old and out of shape and most of my baseball moments come as an observer, I’d have to say talking with Scott McClain about his time in Nippon Professional Baseball is my greatest moment as a writer. To date anyway.

I have a couple, for real.

1 – Around 12 or so. I was on a city playground softball team. We were in the championship game, last inning (7th), down by three (seriously), two outs, bases loaded, I come up to bat. I hit a ground ball right back at the pitcher who reaches down and watches it go right between his legs…it then gets overrun by the CF. I round first and head for second, the CF overthrows 2b. I run to third where again the throw goes by the basemen and down the line. Off I race towards home and get mobbed by my teammates and carried off the field (and I never touched home plate.) Just totally ridiculous yet still somewhat normal for kids playing ball. Still…4 base error to win the game.

2 – Pickup baseball in high school. New guy is pitching and he throws hard. I had been pitching earlier and had struck him out. He wants revenge. With a full count he throws some high heat, it’s a ball but I tomahawk it. I see my buddy, who is playing LF, basically spin around and start sprinting back as I am racing towards 1b. The ball lands quite a bit behind him and continues to roll away. I run the bases screaming at the guy in front of me to hurry up. I crossed home about five feet behind him.

3 – Playing softball a few years back I was the 3b. Some guy at the plate hits an absolute rocket towards me. The sort that all you can do is react. I jumped straight in the air with my glove extended as far as I could and catch the ball in such a way that I almost lose the glove.

I threw two strikes with a fast-pitched softball past a guy in our high-school who’d later play in the majors for a few seasons. The third pitch is still in orbit.

I played baseball from ages 6-18, but I was never that good. I think I struck out the side once in Senior League.

My best moment came in my last year of little league. I made the traveling all star team as a first baseman, but I was really a defensive replacement. I really was never much of a hitter, though I was Kevin Frandsenesque in my ability to get the HBP.

I came in on our last game of the tournament with the score tied, and it stayed tied for two innings. I lead off the seventh inning and the first pitch I saw was something low and inside that I ripped down the line for a double. Two groundball outs later, I scored the winning run.

1) Inside-the-park home run when I was 8 or so. And I have JT Snow-esque speed, so I dont’ know how to say this but…it was a pretty big deal.

2) I dabbled in pitching for my 11 & 12-year old years. One game I beaned the same kid three times in a game and got thrown out. Good times.

I threw a couple of no-hitters in LL. Came 1 out away from a no-hitter (bunt single in the 7th!) in Pony League. Had about 6 or 7 double digit K games in HS.

Sidenote on the Pony League game 1-hitter. I hit the next batter after the bunt single in the back….on purpose.

…in Little League; I was probably seven years old at the time. I was on the A’s (the horror!), and the pitcher was on the Cardinals. My bottom lip bled profusely, and I was skittish at the plate the rest of the season.

In my fantasy, I still get hit. I pick up the bat, gun it at the pitcher, and hit him in the knees (it makes whirring sound as it spins toward him.) I then roundhouse the catcher in the head, knocking him to the backstop. Blood pouring from my face, I walk over to the mound, drag the sobbing, helpless pitcher over to the backstop, and toss him on top of the catcher’s motionless body. Finally, bloodied but triumphant, standing directly on home plate, I throw the ball over the mesh outfield fence, and take a slow, deliberate jog around the bases. The umpires and parents are stunned, and stand silently on the aluminum bleachers.

The piercing sound of a slow, purposeful clap emerges from the snack stand. The man behind the counter, a sweat-stained, faded Giants hat shadowing his face, the sweet scent of retribution finally paying him a visit, nods in approval as I round third base.

That man is me.

Was a game where I was probably 11 or 12. Playing centerfield, there was a ball hit towards the left center gap. I ran over and dove for the ball and caught it, then got up and fired to third to double up the runner there.

I think I did get a triple one year when I was 7 or 8 as well, but really it was a double and an overthrow.

Little league highilght: My only career home run- an inside the park job over the RF’ers head.

College: (fraternity intramural slow pitch softball… “baseball light”)- extra innings, we’re down by 2, two outs, three on, and my team is not hopeful, as I am clearly the weakest hitting in our line-up, batting 9th. After getting two strikes on me with foul balls, I hit a bases-clearing triple to left center. (Actually, it was more like a well placed, scorched single that just kept rolling….) It wasn’t a walk off hit, as we were the “away” team and needed to close out the bottom of the inning. Which we did, with me on the mound. It was by far the biggest hit of my career. I’ll say I batted around .240 for my “career,” including softball, and hardly ever got an extra base hit. So that one was special.

Just wish I could get those “lowlights” out of my head— game losing error, giving up the game-winning tater, striking out with bases loaded, etc. Baseball is brutal.

I would say I was about 11 in Little League. After 2 seasons of not being allowed off the bench for the same team (hey I wasn’t great but my family name was not important enough matter if I got slighted) I grabbed hold of third base in the preseason and started all year. My bat was weak (think Pedro lite but with less OBP and more swinging from the heels) but I had the reflexes, range and arm. Towards the end of the season we were playing the perennial power house while they had 1 game lead for the pennant with another game still to play with the second & third place teams. We couldn’t see 500 with a telescope and a star chart.

A good friend played SS. The other team always tried to take our pitchers up the middle. So the SS and I decided to move the SS more into the hole and I held the line. We dared them to hit it to the left side. They got shut out. The SS and I made all 2 outs of the balls in play. The Pitcher K’ed the rest. Every batter the manager was telling us to realign. Every side we were putting goose eggs up. The manager was pissed off at me because he could not bring himself to yell at the pitcher or SS. But I was right and it was the only time we beat that team in 3 years. Play ball, not politics, and look what happens.

One of my favorite games was “on the road” in Fairfield when I was 15. I went 3-4 with 5 RBIs and made a diving catch in right field. It was a great feeling.

On the way home, news of the Rodney King riots (April 29, 1992) was on the radio.

In little league I was not very good, and on the last place team in my league, buuuut every once in a while we got to go to the ghetto and play all the ghetto kids who were not very good. Their park didn’t have a fence so if you got ahold of one it would really travel, I remember hitting two home runs and a triple that they held me back from scoring because the fat kid in front didn’t hustle enough. I batted about .220 in our league but like .850 against the kids from Hawaiin Gardens

i was 18 and playing baseball at my house with a couple of my friends. we a barn and we used one of the large sliding doors as the strike zone, with a nice duct taped rectangle.

well, i was in the on deck circle (see garbage can lid) when the brand new, cherry red porsche owned by the local high school snot/ actress was pulling up to the stop sign at the corner of our property. normally we suspend baseball operations for a few second until cars pass by so as not to do them damage (normally).

i, at this moment, had a flash of atomic inspiration and picked up the nearest loose ball, took 2 steps, reaered my arm back, and threw it as hard as i could, landing on the palms of my hands afterwards. the street was about 180 feet from the barn and on one hop i hit the front fender of her car as she was passing the driveway and waving at us (as i surreptitiously threw the ‘yer out’ sign).

i claimed it was an accident (it wasnt) and her initial anger wore off as she claimed she was getting a new porsche for her birthday anyway.

greatest throw ever (by the biggest dick ever)
i regretted it as soon as i did it, but it still makes me smile

My first year in little league (I was the minimum age 7 or 8?) I was stuck in right field as most youngsters were. I was playing shallow and a pop-up was hit to deep second base, I moved in on it, the second basemen moved back on it, called for it, reached up for it, and dropped it behind him. I swooped in behind him and lunged for it, catching it right before it hit the ground.

Another memory was while playing Pony league. It’s not really any great achievement, but I remember the day I saw my first real good curveball. In my 4 years in little league, most of the pitchers threw some sort of curve ball, but most either just spun or were kinda slurve-y.

The next year I graduated to Pony league and in the 1st game some kid named Mike Pace threw me a pitch like I’d never seen before. We were both lefties so the pitch was coming right at me, then broke sharply towards the inside corner. I was so shocked I swung in self-defense and grounded it between 1st and 2nd for my 1st Pony league hit.

Whenever I think about my days playing baseball, that memory is as vivid as it were yesterday.

hitting a ‘HR’ in like 4th grade. The dimensions of the yard were terrible, like 120 feet to left field, 300 to right. I have no idea. Never hit it over the left field fence but hitting it off the fence to right was pretty cool.
Also in High School stickball making my friend bleed profusely for 3 minutes from a tennis ball to his nose made me feel pretty powerful.

I sucked at baseball as a kid, and am probably no better now. I didn’t play beyond Little League as well as softball as an adult, but here’s my favorite moment:

During a preseason game I think my second year, I was in right field and a ball was hit my way. I somehow or another managed to catch the ball to end the inning, and was totally stoked! (seriously, I really sucked at baseball)

This was, of course, followed by a very fucked up moment: Some little asshat on my team allowing me to enjoy making a play only until I got back to the dugout. I heard the little fucker say to someone else, “That’s probably the only catch he’ll make all year.” In case you’re wondering, I pretty much hated everyone I went to elementary school with.

It’s a tie:

— 11 years old, playing for SF’s Bronco Red team in a tourney in the South Bay. We were up 1, last inning. I was pitching and let runners get to first and second without getting an out. Coach comes out and yanks me, putting me at second base for the first time in my life, with the second baseman coming in to pitch to Burlingame’s big lefty slugger, who happened to be Scott Feldman. Whaddya know, but he hits a scorching line drive to my left, I make a diving catch, get to my knees and double off the guy on first. Meanwhile, the guy on second is already around third, so our 1B throws it to second for a game ending triple play.

— Junior year of high school. Closing out an extra inning game at Bellarmine by inducing a double play grounder. They batted out of order that inning; no one noticed until we checked the box score that they’d skipped Frandsen.

…for some freak reason, every single dude on my PE softball team but myself was sick one day, leaving just me and like 5 girls to fill out a team. We were getting crushed after several innings when I decided that action needed to be taken. At my next at-bat I hit a homerun (there were no fences, so I just had to run super fast around the bases), and then stole the next at-bat, hitting another one. I did this over and over again about 5 or 6 times, and the other team started to complain that I was cheating but eventually conceded after considering that my team was short-staffed. I eventually flied out to end the rally and I think we lost anyway but at least I made it interesting for an inning.

I played Little League for about a year when I was like 10. This one time, we were facing the hardest throwing pitcher in the league, and I was up with the bases loaded, and I got the count to 3 and 2, and then he threw what I believe was at least an 80-mph fastball straight into my back, and a run scored. Then I cried for a bit.

I did get like three hits that year. And I once made an awesome catch on a liner behind 2B.

The best was when I was 10, in Little League. I was pitching against the best team in the league, and we had gone up by one run going into the bottom half of the last inning. My pitching philosophy at the time consisted of staring at the catcher’s mitt, then rearing back and letting go. This quickly led to walking the bases loaded, then going 3-2 to the next batter. At this point, I realized how bad the situation was, and resolved not to walk in the tying run. My next pitch was a nice, meaty fastball (not very fast) over the center of the plate about waist high, which the hitter took directly back over my head in a beautiful line drive.

The ball went straight to the center fielder, who didn’t have to move a step, and then flipped the ball to second to double up the runner there, and then the second baseman whipped it to third. Triple play, and we won the game.

I got rides home from my coach at the time, who lived a street over. Normally he dropped me off at the end of my street, with the distance varying depending on how well I’d done that day. After that game I think he would have carried me through the door of my house, if I’d let him.

My other enjoyable memories include an inside-the-park home run the game after I’d gotten my first triple; starting at every position but catcher one year; and throwing a CG shutout when I was 15 or 16.

I still try to play every time I get the chance, but I’m strangely winded after running the bases these days.

13 years old, Babe Ruth, throwing out the fastest runner in the league trying to steal second. Little bastard thought he could run on me…

When I lived in the Bay Area (1970 – 73) I was a dual fan of the A’s & Giants. A voracious reader , I happened upon a book called Moustache Gang which chronicled the exploits of the threepeat champion A’s – Chas. Finley , Dick Williams , Dave Duncan , Catfish Hunter , Vida Blue , Joe Rudi , Bert Campaneris , Reggie Jackson , et al.

  In the book there was a play at the plate where Gene Tenace , who is standing , makes a combination catch/sweeping tag of a runner.

  My sole season of high school ball I got one opportunity to make that play…and it worked.

For sharing their stories. What great comments and experiences. Great stuff!

I got mistaken for Dave Flemming’s wife once.

We were getting killed by some lumberjacks, so we were playing incredibly deep. I was in right-center, and when the batter stepped towards right on a pitch I started moving towards the RF line. He hits a Texas Leaguer, and I sprint most of the way straight in and make the catch and roll.

They still killed us, but at least we made the plays that were possible to make.