Tag Archives: Mark McGwire

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Bash Brothers

They might practice wrestling moves on each other daily and they might annoy the ever living hell out of each other on a regular basis, but there is one thing you can’t deny… they are each other’s biggest fan!

Ollie’s first real game turned out to be a heated battle of four year olds fighting for the title of least amount of children left on the field at the end of the game. Four innings of T-ball on an early Saturday morning might be torture for some, but not for these two tag team partners.

Just when you thought things were going to go to hell… the team was losing interest. The players were losing their minds and there were no more dandelions to be picked… then out of no where here comes Jackson to coach first base.

It was like the clouds cleared, the Red Sea had parted… his arrival was a miracle. It had a direct impact on the outcome of the game and dare I say it may have changed the landscape of T-Ball forever (Sandlot reference).

Jax was just the spark that Ollie’s team needed. Oliver was completely inspired and began the “Rally Heard ‘Round the World.” We came back from a large deficit… I’m actually not sure if that’s actually true. I don’t think we keep score and T-ball. But for the sake of the story we were down quite a few runs I needed someone to come up with a big hit. Oliver was just that guy.

…and the rest is history, to be told for years to come. There’s even a rumor that Oliver‘s hat that and Jackson’s autograph on the scorecard are displayed probably in the Hall of Fame…

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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Chicks Dig the Long Ball

https://youtu.be/qLECMCargd8

Such a huge day today for father and son, for baseball fans, for Yankee fans… for baseball in general. So here’s the background… there’s an old saying that hitting a baseball is the hardest things to do in sports. Throw in the fear of getting nailed by a fastball, and you can understand the challenges coaches face trying to teach these little future stars how to play the game.

Many kids when I was growing up were told to “just make contact“, “hit the ball on the ground” or “swing down on the ball.” Hitting a baseball is one of the most complex collection of movement patterns in sports. Hand eye coordination is so important. They say Ted Williams- arguably the greatest hitting in baseball history- could see the laces on the ball as it spun out of the pitchers hand… but the game has changed drastically since the WWII era. So why then… are we teaching our kids to just hit down on the ball? So why do we want to restrict or teach our children to settle for base hits?

Folks… “CHICKS DIG THE LONG BALL!” Tom Glavine said it… heck Greg Maddux said it… and they are two of the greatest pitchers of my generation.

It’s no different for Jackson “The Judge” Carmine who is starting his first season of coach pitch baseball. That’s exactly why he is swinging for the fences. Exit velocity and launch angle and all that advanced saber-metric crap… that’s what he’s learning… he’s four years old and the youngest player on his fall ball team by far… but he’s a dominant force in the lineup. I feel sorry for the opposing coach who has to get down on one knee and toss the ball to him. It must be what a rookie, journeyman reliever feels like facing Aaron Judge.

No really, he’s going to play the game at a young age the way he wants. He’ll learn the right way to play and we’ll have have fun out there together… even if I’m that journeyman reliever who’s out there tossing pitches to him to launch to the moon.

I’m just so excited to see my little guy out there swinging the bat. A four year old hitting pitches is pretty cool, especially if that four year old is your own kid! Watching him make contact and put the ball in play on his first at bat with live pitching was amazing. I’m so proud of him… even if it was just a ground ball! LOL.