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April 18, 2000 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d “Bull Durham.” “When Harry Met Sally.” “Good Will Hunting.” Three movies. Three great movies. And they all feature scenes that take place in batting cages. Coincidence? I don’t think so.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it’s just part of being an American male, but there’s something I love \u00e2\u20ac\u201d always have loved \u00e2\u20ac\u201d about hitting baseballs in a batting cage.<\/p>\n
Especially this time of year. The sun shines a little warmer. The trees turn a little greener. You can smell it, you know. No, not spring. Baseball season.<\/p>\n
When I can turn on the television and see Peter Gammons, all is well with the world.<\/p>\n
Walt Whitman once said, “I see great things in baseball. It’s our game \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the American game.”<\/p>\n
And it is. Passed down from father to son, generation to generation, baseball marches on. The world around it has changed, morphed, transformed. But baseball remains a constant, its integrity \u00e2\u20ac\u201d save for a few minor bumps and bruises \u00e2\u20ac\u201d still intact.<\/p>\n
I emailed my father on baseball’s opening day, just because it was baseball’s opening day. I learned he was having a bad day at work. The mention of baseball, however, somehow made things better.<\/p>\n
He closed his eyes and envisioned Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, N.Y. In his mind he saw Carl Furillo patrolling right field in front of the billboard advertising Abe Stark’s clothing store. The sign read, “Hit the sign, win a suit.”<\/p>\n
My father replied: “My youth returns and enthusiasm for life begins to infuse my being. And, for a moment at least, the universe rights itself. All is clear and simple. The air smells better.”<\/p>\n
My weekly trips to the local batting cages are more than just an attempt to reclaim my youth, although I’m sure that’s part of it. It’s not enough for me to think about baseball, or to watch it. I need to play.<\/p>\n
I’m 26. It’s not that easy to round up 18 of my closest friends to go play some ball. So I escape to the batting cages, where all is clear and simple.<\/p>\n
My bat. My batting gloves. My Yankees cap. And a bag full of quarters. That’s what I take to the batting cages. That’s all I need.<\/p>\n
There are no surprises in the batting cage, save for the odd wild pitch the machine somehow manages. Those will keep you on your toes.<\/p>\n
Outside, the stock market fluctuates, flirts with the Mendoza line. But the pitches keep on coming inside that cage. Outside, the newspaper headlines speak of middle schoolers involved in gang activity. Not inside that cage.<\/p>\n
I’ve seen complete families \u00e2\u20ac\u201d fathers, sons, mothers and daughters \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the cages, each one swinging at pitches from a different machine. Fast. Slow. Baseball. Softball. They’re all swinging. They’re all smiling.<\/p>\n
Men go to the batting cages to discuss sports, relationships, life. It’s cheaper than going to the bar. Better for you, too.<\/p>\n
Some have more serious intentions. They use the batting cage as a training tool. At Paradise Mini Golf & Bat Cages on Old Thompson Bridge Road, teams will rent out the cages for hours at a time.<\/p>\n
The last time I was out, I watched James Braselton feed tokens into the “very fast” machine at Bumpers and Bogeys on Jesse Jewell Parkway. Braselton plays in an over-40 fast-pitch baseball league in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
He arrived. Swung at 100 pitches. And left. Just like that. No rest at all.<\/p>\n
“By that time you’re kind of worn down a little bit,” he said.<\/p>\n
Harry Hernandez, manager at Bumpers, said he has a customer that comes all the way from the South Carolina border twice a month just to use the batting cages.<\/p>\n
“I give him special deals because he drives so far,” Hernandez said. “He spends about three hours here before he goes back.”<\/p>\n
It is addicting. The yellow balls fly toward you one after the other. It’s instantaneous gratification. You can make up for a miss or a foul with the next swing.<\/p>\n
If you’ve never struck a ball solidly \u00e2\u20ac\u201d right on the sweet spot of the bat \u00e2\u20ac\u201d you haven’t lived.<\/p>\n
I swing until I can’t swing anymore. And even after that last pitch \u00e2\u20ac\u201d while the mechanical arm shakes itself still \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I take a second look, hoping I counted the pitches wrong, hoping the arm starts moving again and sends another ball my way.<\/p>\n
But all it takes is another couple quarters, another token, and the pitches start coming again.<\/p>\n
Ask, and ye shall receive. All is clear and simple at the batting cages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
April 18, 2000 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d “Bull Durham.” “When Harry Met Sally.” “Good Will Hunting.” Three movies. Three great movies. And they all feature scenes that take place in batting cages. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Perhaps it’s just part of being an American male, but there’s something I love \u00e2\u20ac\u201d always …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}