2013 Baseballs world series begins tonight!  YAYEEEEE!  I guess.

I’ve never been into baseball, basketball, football or for that matter any of the big time sports stuff.  Little League…you bet…especially when the kids were playing and it doesn’t look like the grandkids are into that, so my little league days are over.  I never was coordinated enough to play little league, even though I did don my uniform religiously and went to the practices and games, but in my 3 year career I can only remember hitting the ball one time and made one terrible play at second base…all the other memories of playing are gone.  I was on a team called the “DZ’s”…it really doesn’t even sound like a good team does it?  Disease.   It didn’t stand for that word, it actually stood for the two coaches, Dick and Zundel and they were great coaches, they just couldn’t get me to be able to hit the ball or play the infield very good.  I gave them 3 years and tried really hard, it just didn’t happen.

What about basketball?  Too short and uncoordinated, my layups all came off the wrong foot and I could not get that habit out of my head…so I just cheered the team on.

Golf?  I did get pretty good at that silly game.  Once I was taught how to control where the ball was going to go, I went from scores in the 80’s (nine holes), to the 40’s and even into the mid 30’s before I hung up the clubs.  The secret was two fold:  Keep your head down was a biggie, but the best lesson I learned besides that was to take hold of the club handle correctly.

I’m right handed and so I would lean my club handle against my right leg, the ball on the ground was just inside my left foot and of course out away from my body a foot or so.  I’d lean over and grasp the club with my right hand and slightly turn the club, so the face of it was almost invisible from my prospective, then I would take hold with my left hand making sure not to change the angle of the club face.  Then keeping my head down and eye focused on the back of the ball, the back swing and follow through would send that ball way down the middle of the fairway.

Now if the fairway curved to the right, I would not change the face of the club at all from what it was as it rested on the ground and the handle leaning against my leg.  That way the club face would come in contact with the back of the ball and sort of  “slice” it as it lifted the ball.  It would actually give the ball a spinning motion in a left to right (clockwise) direction and the ball would sail down range and start to turn to the right as it went.  It was actually cool to watch it all play out, following the lay of the land and giving me much needed distance and still maintaining the ball in the playing field and not out into the rough.

If the fairway curved to the left, I would bury the face of the club to a point I could not see any of the face at all.  Again when the club came in contact with the ball it would cut across it and give it a right to left (counter clockwise) spin.  Flying down range it would then curve its flight path to the left, following the contour of the range.

I practiced that a lot at the practice range until I had it mastered.  Of course the real golf guys have a lot more tricks up their pant legs than I did.  But once I started consistently hitting near par, I lost interest in the game all together…too easy I suppose.

So, tonight starts the World Series games, best 4 out of 7 team wins all the marbles.  This year it’s the Saint Louis Cardinals against the Boston Red Socks.  Both teams sporting red in their uniforms!  I don’t much care as to which team wins because my interest in the game is only on the final scores!  Vegas has my money baby!  Well, close to Vegas anyway and as long as the scores land on my number I’ll be a happy guy!  No cheating fellas!  And no paying off the umps either!  Professional ball players, team owners and mafia types are like that you know!

There are a couple of other reasons besides my numbers that makes the games interesting to watch.  The commercials and the sports announcers “stats”!  I’m not sure which is the most interesting, but I can tell you the “stats” are a statisticians night mare.  They have stats on top of stats for each player, coach and probably even the bat boy/girl (girls are getting into the game too).

When was the last time you heard of a team winning a series after loosing the first 3 games?  Or hitting a grand slam after falling behind in the pitch 2 and 0 after 2 pitches?  What about sliding into home base with one shoe coming off as he rounded 3rd?  Getting hit in the head with a pitch his first 3 times at bat in one game?  Grounding to short stop and still making it all around the bases to home on errors?

They have stats for all of it.  Do yourself a favor in the game tonight and don’t get up between innings to get another beer, just once sit there and watch the commercials and listen to the announcers spew their stuff.  It’s comical!

Oh and by the way 15 more days until we head off to the elk hunt! There are my stats on that!

Bears Butt

Oct. 23, 2013