Baseball- 50 Years Later

I was recently invited by the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball organization to be a Pirates “Big Leaguer for a Day.” It’s something that the Pirates apparently do every year in appreciation for the support that people and organizations provide to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  This year, the Bordas & Bordas law firm entered into a business relationship with the Pittsburgh Pirates.  For the first time, we have a suite at the Pirates games and are able to entertain 20 people per game.  In addition, the law firm name and logo also now appears on the Clemente wall in right field.

It was explained to me that two people from the law firm could participate in the “Big Leaguer for a Day” activities at PNC Park.  My law partner, Geoff Brown, and I were chosen as the two participants in this event.  I later found out that I was the oldest person on the field.

In going to Pittsburgh, Geoff and I weren’t quite sure exactly what would happen once we got to PNC Park.  We arrived at the ballfield a little bit before 10 a.m.  Geoff and I were escorted to the Pirates visitor’s locker room by very friendly Pirates employees, and upon arriving in the locker room, we saw that our names and the other participant’s names were on their individual lockers.  Hanging in each locker was an official Pittsburgh Pirates jersey with the individual’s name on the back of the jersey, a Pirates baseball hat, shorts, batting gloves, shoes and a backpack, all of which we got to keep.

When we walked into the locker room, we were greeted by Kent Tekulve, Grant Jackson and Omar Marino, all former Pittsburgh Pirates stars. Jackson and Tekulve, the winning pitcher and reliever in our last World Series championship in 1979, were the coaches of the team that Geoff and I were on.

Geoff and I were placed on the white team (we had white jerseys), and there were a number of people placed on the black team (who had black jerseys).  We were then treated to a delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, rolls, etc.  Then the fun began.  We dressed in the locker room, put on our new clothes and shoes, took our baseball glove with us, and were led onto the field.  We were actually on the real Pittsburgh Pirates baseball field - the field that we saw the Pirates perform on at all the games that we had been to over all these past years.

We were split up into three groups.  One group took infield practice, one group outfield practice and the other group took batting practice.  Geoff and I decided that we first would shag fly balls in the outfield.  These weren’t the fly balls that I’d remembered from when I last played baseball as a teenager.  The balls were hit higher and longer than any balls I’d ever seen.  I had also not shagged a fly ball since I was a teenager.  I have played in softball leagues, but I had nothing to do with baseball other than passing with my children and grandchildren and throwing them baseballs to hit as they were participants in baseball leagues.  The balls were hit to us by a professional baseball group from Butler, Penn.  At first it was quite a daunting task for me.  I’m 68 years old, and I was concerned that if I misjudged one of these incredibly high fly balls and the ball hit me in the head, it’d probably kill me.  Nonetheless, I attempted to move under every single ball that was hit to me, and quite surprisingly, after remembering that you had to go back a few feet before you came in, was able to catch pretty much everything that was hit to me.  That doesn’t mean I wasn’t nervous about every single ball, I was, not only because of the fear of being injured, but also the fear of being embarrassed.

The one big surprise for me though was that I could not throw the ball very well once I caught it.  I had passed baseballs with my grandson, Carson, just a couple years ago, and was throwing the ball hard, long and straight.  Within the last two years though, I had a serious bicycle accident in which I completely broke and separated my right shoulder.  At the time, the orthopedic surgeon that was treating me indicated that there would be no need for surgery since I wasn’t going to be a big league baseball player.  Little did I realize that I would no longer be able to throw a baseball for any distance or with much accuracy.  Surprisingly, I’ve thrown footballs in the last couple of years and the throwing motion of a football is quite different.  I have no difficulty at all in passing football with my children and grandchildren.  Baseball, though, is a completely different deal.  This was quite embarrassing to me because I remembered just a couple years earlier being able to put a lot of steam on the ball and throwing it for a quite a distance.

We next took infield practice.  The infield practice was actually done on the warning track in the outfield, and the balls that were hit were not any sissy balls.  They were hit pretty hard and sometimes took crazy hops.  Nonetheless, Geoff was able to handle just about every single ball, and I did pretty well myself.  Once again though, I continued having issues with throwing the ball once I fielded it.

The next step was batting practice.  Before the “Big Leaguer for a Day” event, I had planned on taking batting practice in a batting cage at a local facility.  Unfortunately, because I was extremely busy with work at the law firm, I was not able to do that.  I thought this would be a real problem inasmuch as I had only hit baseballs one time while at the beach at a batting cage over the last 50 years.  While I did okay then, I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to hit the ball during batting practice.  The good news was that the pitchers, who were also from the professional baseball school, threw the ball straight and not all that fast.  I think the fastest ball that we got was probably 50 miles per hour.

I stepped into the batter’s box after choosing what I thought would be the perfect bat for me and began swinging the bat.  We each got 15 balls the first go around, and five later on.  I was quite surprised that I was able to hit almost every ball pitched to me in addition to being able to even knocking a number of balls into the outfield.  I was quite relieved to think that I might not embarrass myself when batting.

We all took a break after everyone had a chance to bat and field some ground balls and catch some fly balls, and we met with our coaches.  The game then started.  We wore the white jerseys and were considered the home team, so the other team batted.  Initially, I chose to play in the outfield, but quickly realized that was a mistake because even if I happened to catch the ball, I wouldn’t be able to throw the ball very well to somebody if the runner tagged up.  I also would have difficulty throwing the ball if it was hit on the ground.  It worked out pretty well because the person that was playing first base had dropped a ball or two during the first inning and was eager to switch positions, so I moved to first base the second inning.

My first at bat I hit a very hard line drive to the pitcher, who thankfully was with the baseball school and was able to knock the ball down.  I was thrown out, but at least the pitcher wasn’t injured.  I think if it would have been one of us, there might have been a problem.  I was also happy that I was able to run to first base without pulling a muscle.  That was another one of my fears.  As you get older and you’ve not done something for quite a while, there are any number of things that went through my mind that could be problematic, including muscle pulls.

Another interesting feature of the game was that each time we were up to bat, our name and photograph appeared on the PNC Park scoreboard, our names were announced over the loud speaker and our college fight song was played.  It was pretty interesting.

The game proceeded, and I even got a couple of hits. We went all the way up to theseventh inning, which was the designated number of innings we would play in the game.  My team actually had won the game 3-1.  The other team, however, pressed the coaches and our team to extend the game to nine innings.  We agreed.

We proceeded with the next two innings, theeighth and ninth, and did fairly well until the ninth inning when our opposition scored two runs to tie the game at 3 apiece.  I happened to be the second batter up in the bottom of the ninth  inning.  I got on base with a single, and moved to second on a fielder’s choice.  With two outs and still being on second base, my partner was up to bat.  Geoff hit a hard ground ball between second and short, and I ran as hard as I possibly could.  I actually made it from second to home without collapsing and scored the winning run off Geoff’s hit.  Our team won 4-3.

We celebrated and had pictures taken and had a great time.  The day was a blast.  I met many wonderful Pittsburgh people during the course of the day.  I was particularly impressed with the individual who was next in age to me, although he was still about six years younger, who owned the Pittsburgh Brewing Company.  I could tell that this guy had been a very serious athlete once upon a time.  I introduced myself, and sure enough, he not only was an athlete, but had played hockey at Notre Dame, the alma mater of both Geoff, my son, Jamie, my law partner, Chris Regan and three associates at the firm.  We hit it off right away.  It was also easy to meet and talk to the rest of the people on the team, but this man was my favorite, not only because of his personality, but also because he looked like he could still play baseball like a youngster, even in his early 60s, and he sure enough did.

During the course of the day, our Pirates coaches would put stars on our hats if we did something good.  The stars each had an “s” in them, which was the star that Willie Stargell, who was a much beloved former Pirate, had instituted during the 1979 World Series campaign.  Geoff and I each ended up with 6 stars, and Geoff was truly the outstanding player of the game.

At the end of the day, after many pictures were taken, we went back to the locker rooms where the Pirates organization had lunch, soft drinks, beer and massages ready for us.  The weather was great.  It was a beautiful sunny day.  It was fun to be a Pittsburgh Pirate and Big Leaguer for a Day.