Finding Mudville: It’s baseball – and softball – season | Sports | Berkeley Independent

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Finding Mudville: It’s baseball – and softball – season

Published Tuesday, March 09, 2010 10:34 AM

By Dan Brown
Berkeley Independent

The high school regular baseball season begins this week and in some parts of the state there is still traces of snow on the ground.

Hard to believe isn’t it, but in my run back and forth between here and there this weekend I saw patches of snow on the ground and, in and around the white stuff, they’re playing baseball.

At no time of the year does a sport symbolize the changing of the season more than baseball. You hear the crack of the bat – or in today’s age, the “Ping!” of aluminum – and regardless what the thermometer says, you start to feel warm.

The girls are ready to start this week as well, and if you haven’t sat through a girls softball game, you are missing a real treat and an interesting variation of Abner Doubleday’s original concept.

I sat through a week of baseball last week at the Lowcountry Preseason Invitational and I’m still having a hard time getting my arms around the high school rule here allowing middle school aged athletes to play varsity sports.

I saw an eighth grader catching in Kyle Garrick and despite having the build of a 14-year old, the kid caught a good game. He’s got a good arm. He can play.

On the softball side, Chelsea Napier begins her third season of varsity play and she’s just a sophomore.

I like the ruling and wish it had been in place back in my day.

In 1973 I was the first freshman to play a varsity sport (baseball) at my high school since before World War II and you would have thought I had asked to bring a keg of beer to school there was such an uproar from the school’s administration. My coach wanted me to play as he’d seen me pitch. The athletic director said I was ruining 60 years of tradition and making a mockery of the game. My principal, who coincidentally was the athletic director’s older brother, said I could play, just as long as I didn’t miss any Driver’s Ed classes.

There were times when I’d do my Driver’s Ed in my baseball uniform. I’d drive around town for a half an hour, let myself out at the outfield gate to the baseball stadium and sprint to the bullpen to warm up for that afternoon’s game.

I was named the Opening Day starter, a huge move back then, and I think a conspiratorial decision by the school administration to prove a point and put me in my place so to speak.

I was to pitch against the defending regional champs and the current fourth ranked team in the state. I shut them out 5-0. Pro and college scouts were there to watch.

It would have been fun to pitch as an eighth grader, too. My take is, if you can play, then play.

Another observation from this week: I need a Big Man’s Chair. I have routine when it comes to watching high school baseball. I like to sit in my chair behind home plate where I can have a complete view of the diamond. I bring peanuts, something to drink, camera and scorebook. I hunker down in my chair, crack some peanuts and absorb the game.

Without my Big Man’s Chair, my Feng Shui is thrown out of kilter. I lost my Big Man’s Chair of a dozen years last fall on a beach in Pensacola, Fl. I’m having trouble finding a new one.

It begins this week for real. Starting last night, the games count.

Now if I can just find me a good Big Man’s Chair, I’m set.

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