Life in the Minors
Brendan Sagara
Line drives can
give you the B.P.
(black and) bluesHAMILTON, Ohio >> As one could guess, many things turn into a grind during our 3 1/2 month season.
With 90 games over 95 days or so, the pre-game schedule becomes monotonous. At home, the pitchers arrive at the ballpark at about 2:30 p.m. for their daily conditioning, and the rest of the guys show up at 3:30 or 4 to dress and prepare for the day.
On the road, a 4 p.m. bus to the visitor's clubhouse of whichever stadium in the Midwest we are playing in that day is the norm.
Once at the ballpark, we all sift through the various laundry bins searching for our jerseys and pants and batting practice jerseys and stirrups and sanitary socks and undershirts and personal bags. At home, our clubbies sort all the laundry and hang them in our lockers.
After that, the pitchers usually go off on their daily running assignments, while the position players dress and head off to the field, where they go through team stretch, led by our team trainer -- former University of Hawaii graduate assistant trainer Josh Seligman.
During this time, the coaching staff sits and discusses many things -- ranging from the day's starting lineup to the previous night's game to pitch counts to what we had for lunch or what type of baseball glove our manager should get for his son.
Then comes batting practice.
With about 85 pre-game batting practice sessions throughout the course of the season -- we do skip B.P. on rare occassions -- the 45 minutes or so a day we spend letting our hitters get loose and work the kinks out of their swings is usually quite boring.
The hitters are divided into four groups every day. The extra men, the guys with the day off, usually hit first, followed by our batting order for the day. Our 1-2-3 hitters make up the first group, with our 4-5-6 and 7-8-9 guys to follow.
Our three-man coaching staff splits the load, with each guy throwing a couple of groups and one of us taking the day off. Blah, blah, blah, you get the drift.
Well Thursday seemed to be one of those "business as usual" kind of days. At least that's the way it started out. I woke up at about 2 p.m. -- we arrived in town at about 8 a.m. after a seven-hour overnight bus ride -- showered up, ate lunch downstairs in the hotel restaurant/bar, and then found my way onto the team bus for our 4 o'clock bus.
That's about when all the stuff began to hit the fan and put a slider spin on the day. As we pulled away, we noticed that about a half dozen of our players were missing. Late for the bus. Out of the 54 games we had played thus far, this was just the second time this year we have had guys tardy for the bus. A little strange, but not bizarre.
Another noticeable absencewas our skipper, Greg Tagert. With his son coming out of surgery to repair a fracture in the middle finger of his throwing hand he incurred shagging fly balls during batting practice a couple of days ago, Greg did not make the team bus out of Kenosha, Wis.
Instead, he drove his car and met us here in Hamilton, Ohio, where we are playing the Florence Freedom.
So in another strange twist, I was put in charge of handling all of the "skippering" duties for the day. Making the lineup card, filling the daily assignment sheet and posting the day's starting lineup and duties and all that good stuff.
Well, the day really got weird when I took to the field to throw my two rounds of B.P.
My first round was one of my best of the season I must say. Lots of strikes, few balls in the back of the cage, and quick. Very quick. Our hitters were in rhythm and feeling good.
The next round was downright painful.
With an "L-shaped" screen protecting the batting-practice pitcher from line drives off the bats of our young professional hitters, B.P. is usually rather uneventful. There are always a number of close calls in the field with line drives from hitters and hard-hit ground balls from fungo hitters whizzing around the park, but the pitcher is usually relatively safe.
Today turned out to be the exception. Now, the odds of getting drilled by a line drive while throwing B.P. must be like one in a gazillion. In my three years of coaching minor league ball, I had yet to see someone get hit by a "comebacker."
While I still have not "seen" anyone get hit by a comebacker, I did finally see on Thursday the after effects of someone getting nailed during B.P. Unfortunately, I had the worst seat in the house.
Working into the second round of our final group of the day, I was still in a groove. Lots of strikes, few balls in the back of the cage, and quick. That's when everything suddenly screeched into slow motion.
As I turned another pitch loose toward the batting cage, I looked down for an instant to look into the ball bucket to grab my next batch of balls to throw. In a instant, I heard a deep, loud, thud, and then felt a pain in my rib cage. I never even saw it coming.
Having spent a number of hours training in the boxing ring at Palolo Gym, Icompare the pain to getting hit with an unexpected hook to the body. I got hit square by a line drive. It didn't glance me, it didn't nick me. It got me good.
I was a little stunned. Never expected that. Wow. With the whole macho thing running through my veins, I quickly resumed throwing to the hitters. Didn't take more than three seconds to get back to it. I was actually pretty happy with my rapid recovery. If I were in the ring, I would have barely missed a step. No eight count for me.
So there I was again, back in the groove, lots of strikes, few balls in the back of the cage, and quick, when...
Thud!!! I got drilled again. Same dang spot by the same dang guy. This time I was pissed. I wanted to kill someone. I wanted to hit someone back. With two more cuts remaining in his round, the hitter was a sitting duck. Man, as I stepped into the next pitch my mind was racing at a thousand miles per hour, thinking of a way that I could justify getting even.
I could say that the ball slipped out of my hand, or that my rib cage convulsed as I threw the ball. But I knew that there was nothing for me to do but keep throwing strikes. What ticked me off even more was that his family, visiting from Southern California, cheered as he kept hitting, thinking that hitting his own coach in B.P. was a good thing. If nothing else, I did learn that in my age I must be learning some restraint. I kept my cool.
We lost that night, the batting practice assassin went 0-for-4, and upon returning to the hotel, I learned that I have a huge and grotesque bruise on my back -- about the size of a personal pan pizza, a purple, Pac-man looking contusion with a blood-red center.
One by one the guys made their way to my hotel room to see the legendary bruise first hand. I believe "awesome," "putrid" and "the ugliest thing I have ever seen" were a few of the descriptions of choice.
At that point, all I could do was laugh. I had taken two line drives square in the ribs, in the same exact spot, and stayed on my feet. Two absolute lasers. I had stared fear in the eye and didn't blink. Hey maybe I can take Mike Tyson.
Okay, maybe not.
Brendan Sagara, a former University of Hawaii-Hilo pitcher, is in his first season as pitching coach with the Kenosha (Wis.) Mammoths.
