Talk about YOUR baseball "career"

[Tony-OH]

Obviously everyone on the Hangout is a baseball fan, and I know some have played up to the minor leagues, but I thought it would be interesting to hear about everyone's baseball "careers". Did you stop in Little League, JV, high School, college, pros? Did you play men's baseball as an adult? What were your top moments that you can remember?

[Stanhouse.]

One day in 2010, I held down the middle innings of a no-hitter in Doubleday Field in Coopstown. The son (Clark) who started the game and his father (George) who finished it were infinitely more talented. I believe the only walk allowed was mine. I’m so happy I didn’t spoil a great family achievement for them!

[Frobby]

I only played through 7th grade.    The highlight of my career was the first game that season.   I was playing LF and batting 9th, clearly the worst hitter in our starting lineup and grateful I’d been named a starter.    The opposing pitcher retired our first 8 hitters and then I came up.    The count quickly got to 0-2, but on the next pitch I got plunked on the arm and that ignited a big rally in a game we eventually won.    Yep, that HBP was the highlight of my pathetic baseball career.    I did get a couple of hits but batted well under .200 and eventually lost my starting spot.      
 

Here’s a thread from a couple years ago where I ran a poll on how high a level of baseball OHers had played: 

https://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/index.php?/topic/33600-what-was-the-highest-level-of-baseball-that-you-played/&tab=comments#comment-2400593

[VaBird1]

Played in college. Too small for the pros.

[yark14]

Baseball was my worst sport. Growing up in a small town you pretty much had to play every sport (heck, I played in the marching band during the halftime of games in my football uniform). Baseball was my favorite when I was young, but when I was 12 I was hit by a pitch in the face and had to have major reconstructive surgery.  I was a decent player, but never felt comfortable in the box after the injury and had vision issues due to the injury.  Biggest achievement was hitting a bases loaded double off the wall when I was 14 to seal the state championship.  Kept playing for a couple more years but really didn't have much passion for the game.  Right after I stopped I hit a growth spurt and put on probably 30lbs of muscle and developed into a really good athlete (played football and ran track in college).  Now that I'm older baseball is the only sport I really follow closely.  The intracasies of the game that I didn't understand back then now fascinate me.

Sometimes I wonder what I could have accomplished had I put the time and effort into baseball that I did other sports.   I probably would have had enough raw athleticism to play in college, but not enough skill and consistency with the bat to do anything beyond that.

[tntoriole]

High school, American Legion, college...small time,  not good with breaking pitches, went to med school instead...better idea...lol.   A guy on my high school team was drafted by Indians as a pitcher but arm troubles arose and he  never made it past A ball.  Jim Spencer, Angel, Ranger, White Sox, Yankee  was a first round pick out of my high school about 10 years before me, but used to come back, give clinics, tips...

Although the real success out of my high school was our senior class president, Montel Williams...lol. 

 

[UMDTerrapins]

I started off as a pitcher and was going to break every record in the book. Some crazy chick shot me, not really sure why....I don't really like to talk about it. I was thinking about making a comeback but, you know, coronavirus. 

 

My real truth is that I couldn't hit a lick but I had a fantastic curveball that I learned at a baseball camp that had Mike Flanagan and Tippy Martinez. I used Mike's grip with McGregor's windup. Then I screwed up my rotator cuff for life. Listen up kids....stick to fastballs! I only came to realize in the last five years that a neglected & screwed up rotator cuff becomes worse when you get older. I shoulda been a farmer.

[Tony-OH]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

I only played through 7th grade.    The highlight of my career was the first game that season.   I was playing LF and batting 9th, clearly the worst hitter in our starting lineup and grateful I’d been named a starter.    The opposing pitcher retired our first 8 hitters and then I came up.    The count quickly got to 0-2, but on the next pitch I got plunked on the arm and that ignited a big rally in a game we eventually won.    Yep, that HBP was the highlight of my pathetic baseball career.    I did get a couple of hits but batted well under .200 and eventually lost my starting spot.      
 

Here’s a thread from a couple years ago where I ran a poll on how high a level of baseball OHers had played: 

https://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/index.php?/topic/33600-what-was-the-highest-level-of-baseball-that-you-played/&tab=comments#comment-2400593

You are literally Rudi Stein.

You are also a giant buzzkill bringing up an old thread when I'm trying to get some conversations going.

[Legend_Of_Joey]

I played from Tee Ball all the way through Little League until High School. I had a very good arm and mainly played 3rd, catcher, and pitcher until my last two years when I was moved to second base. As a hitter...I could draw a walk and was decent at stealing, but teams weren’t exactly scared of my hitting. Defense was my highlight. Guess Wynns and I are similar.

Gave up baseball to play football in High School.

Highlights in Little League were playing against other kids I was in school with who were always talking trash when I would catch and not a single one of them successfully stole a base against me, or one of my teammates and I being the backbone of the team one season. I could hit that season and one of us would pitch the first 4 innings and the other would pitch the last 3, while the other caught. Ended up winning our “level” championship that year and we had the best record in the entire league.
 

I still throw when I can and actually won a Manny Machado autograph ball at Aberdeen during “Launch A Ball” by getting the tennis ball in the bucket on the pitchers mound from the stands on the first base side.

[Tony-OH]

From that thread Frobby brought back up with some additions since that was about the highest level:

I was always a pretty good player through T-ball, Little league and Pony league (13-15) always making the year end all-star team for Riviera Beach. I do however have a few highlights that I remember.

As a 12-year old, I was traded from the Yankees (i hated playing on the Yankees but that was team that "drafted me" outta 8-9 ball) to the Red Sox because I was mostly a catcher and the kid they trade me for was mostly a pitcher. The first time we face the Yankees was on a beautiful spring Saturday morning because my Dad always made my weekend games. The coach told me he wanted me to start against my former team and against the kid I was traded for. My Dad warmed me up and I went out to the mound. My issues with pitching had nothing to do with velocity since I always had a good arm, but had to do with throwing strikes.

Well on this day, with the manager who traded me watching, I was going to throw the best game of my young life. From what I remember we got behind 2-0 going into the bottom of the 5th (we played 6 inning games) when we came up to bat. With two outs, I came to bat with two runners on. Using my Dan Ford closed stance, I connected with a fastball that sent the ball to deep left. As I looked out to left, I could see the ball sail over the fence and land a good 20 feet behind near the money bars. It was my only home run of the year and it was sweet. I crushed it. It didn't just land over the fence, it landed by the monkey bars and had to have been the longest ball I ever had hit in my 12 years on earth. As all the parents and my teammates erupted, I went into a home run trot. I enjoyed every step of that trot and when I got to third base, I shook my coaches hand and then picked up the manager who traded me. He sat there at the end of that bench with his scorecard in his hand not wanting to look up. He finally did and I smiled at him and for second there, I thought he even slightly smiled back. I ended up pitching the 6th without giving up a run and we won 3-2. 

The next year, I was told I was drafted with the 1st overall pick outta 10-12 league by the Phillies because I was catcher and the Phillies had the best pitcher in the league Karl Breitenbacher. Everyone was scared to catch Karl because he could throw in the mid 80s as a 14-year old, but I wasn't, in fact, I loved the challenge.

Though I had my successes including hitting about .600 as a 15-year old, probably my biggest moment had to do with catching Karl. Karl threw so hard that one of our umpires was scared of him and I was told he closed his eyes and then would see where I caught the ball. During one game, with two outs, the bases loaded, and a 3-2 count, Karl threw an 80MPH+ fastball that was so high I had to jump up and catch the ball above my head, but in the same movement I dropped back down and landed in my squat and presented a strike. The umpire opened his eyes, yelle strike 3, as the parents and coaches on the other team erupted in displeasure. I tossed the ball back to the mound and sprinted back to my bench where my coach high-fived me.

In high school, I played for the great Harry Lentz and Al Kohlhafer at Northeast High school. I played JV my freshmen year, playing mostly catcher, but also some outfield and occasionally filled in at 3B or 2B if needed. I had always been able to play all the positions, but never had consistent enough hands to play the infield. 

This reminds me of a funny story as a sophomore. That year I was competing for the CF job since there was a senior All-county catcher named Mark Rich. One day during practice before the season started, Coach Lents yelled out to CF, "Pente, where doe the best athlete on the team play?"
I yelled back, "SS, coach".
He responded with, "then what are you doing out there?"
My assumption was he wanted to see me get more ground balls there as they were trying to see if I could help the varsity team in some role. So i went over to SS and made a couple of nice plays including some great throws, but then I started to boot balls left and right as my poor infield hands reared their ugly head.
That's when Coach Yelled back out, "Pente, get your ass back in the outfield"
"Ok, coach"

And that was extent of my high school shortstop career.

That year with a Freshman catcher (who ended up playing in the Braves farm system for a short period of time) coming up, I moved out to the outfield basically full-time.

As a senior, I ended up getting 2nd team All-county (after a slow start) and earning a special pre draft workout with the Kansas City Royals after a game in which i went 3-4 with a double and home run while throwing two runners out at the plate from RF. Long story short on this, I accidentally missed the camp when I got my dates mixed up.

After high school I joined the Army, but kept playing. I first played in a summer college league in Virginia (Hit well over .450 and played SS/CF/P) when I was 20 and ended up going to an Orioles tryout camp at Memorial Stadium.

During that camp I made the cut from 90 outfielders to six that got to play in the mini game in front of the scouts. On the first pitch I saw in the game hit a ball into the front row of the outfield fence just next to the 309 ft foul pole, but unfortunately it was on the foul side. I ended up striking out when they replaced that pitcher with Mike Mussina's roommate from Stanford. I was asked to come back to a camp a few weeks later and was told if they liked me then they would offer me a contract, but I wasn't able to attend because the same day Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait and I became very busy and couldn't get off.

I then put together my own team for a Baltimore-area Men's League (MSBL) in which we won the championship in my one and only year of being a player-manager in that league. I then was stationed in Hawaii where I played in summer and winter leagues with winter leagues being a league where we played against college teams and minor leaguers in their offseason. The Hawaii armed forces decided to put together a baseball tournament and I made the All Army Hawaii team that lost to the all Air Force team in the finals. Funny thing was the All-Air Force team then put a team in that local winter league and they asked me to try out and gave me a waiver because I worked on an Air Force base. So I get to say I was the guy to ever be All-Army Hawaii and All Air-Force Hawaii. 

Got stationed in NC and didn't play for almost four year when I was assigned back to Maryland and found an Anne Arundel Men's 25 and over team to play for. Played on two teams then got stationed back to Hawaii. Didn't have time to play right away, but after returning from Afghanistan, I played on two more teams (with my new PRK eyes that were fixed by the Army before deployment I could hit better than ever). I also started doing associate scouting from the Orioles out there at this time.

Returned back to Maryland and after a year or two found a team in the 35 and over AA Men's League. After playing a year I put together my own team and we won the championship (that's two for two in managing championship teams if you are counting). Team broke up after the year (you have never seen politics until you deal with a men's baseball league) and I filled in some new players with the guys that stayed and we ended up making the playoffs again, but lost in the semi-finals (Making the first time I coached a team that I played on that we didn't win a championship).

After that year, fed up with the politics, my hitting had fallen off to the point I was batting myself 8th (think I hit like .250 with wood bats), and I wanted to focus on coaching high school and doing associate scouting stuff for an American League team, I "retired from playing.

Surprisingly, I don't miss it. I've come out of retirement two times to fill in for a team that needed a player so bad or they were going to forfeit, but after pulling my hamstring in my last game, it was clear father time had claimed another victim.

And if read this far, now you know way to much history of my playing days! Haha

[Frobby]

“Surprisingly, I don't miss it. I've come out of retirement two times to fill in for a team that needed a player so bad or they were going to forfeit, but after pulling my hamstring in my last game, it was clear father time had claimed another victim.”

When you get to a certain age, you have to learn where the line is to keep you from pulling a hamstring or calf muscle.     You can run at a certain speed but if you accelerate too fast, you’re a goner.    

Despite my inability to hit a hardball, I was (and still am, sort of) a pretty good slow pitch softball player.     Once my kids came to watch me play and I came up with the bases loaded and crushed a ball over the LF’s head.    That was great, except that I pulled a calf muscle charging out of the batter’s box.    I managed to limp my way to 3B on what surely would have been a grand slam.    I kept playing, and lo and behold the bases were loaded my next time up.   I hit a long liner that perfectly bisected LF and CF and kept rolling.    I’m limping along, but my biggest problem is there’s a woman ahead of me on the bases who didn’t know what to do, so I’m having to lag behind her.    As she finally heads towards home, I head to third and by now a relay throw is coming in there.    It sails over the head of the 3B and I hobble home.    Just after I touch home plate and peel off behind the backstop, my 6/7 year old daughter leaps into my arms and says “Daddy, you’re amazing!   You’re the best dad in the whole world!!!”     If I had died just then, I would have died a very happy man.

Of course, at this point I had to keep playing, even though my leg was a wreck.    Later in the game I was playing 1B, the other team had a runner on 3B and the hitter hit a slow chopper towards me.    I charged it but the catcher had wandered off so the runner headed for home.   I raced him there and managed to tag him just before reaching home, but further pulled my calf in the process.     For the next three days, I had to use a cane to walk, and for more than a year, I could feel that calf muscle threatening to pull again even when I just chased my kids around the back yard.   But it was worth it for that great moment with my daughter — who by the way doesn’t remember it at all.   
 

[backwardsk]

Best player I played against was Jimmy Rollins.  He’s the only one I know of that played in the MLB.  Played against a couple of other guys who played in the NFL.  One guy hit a homerun off me in American Legion, he had been drafted by the Twins the week before.  

[BRobinsonfan]

I played from age 5 through high school.  I tried out as a walk-on in college but quite because I knew with practicing twice a week I wasn't going to make it as a student... and likewise, I knew I didn't have a future in professional baseball (as hard as that was for me to admit).  

While my Dad was stationed in Germany I made the K-Town (Kaiserslautern) All Star Team during my sophomore year.  I was primarily a catcher but got called on to pitch occasionally because I could thrown hard.  I also had a kind of "knuckle slurve" that worked as an off speed pitch with a little movement.  As a K-Town all star I pitched in the Senior League European championships where we came within a game of going back to the states to participate in the Little League World Series tournament.  The got the win in a game (against SHAPE if I remember correctly, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe).  In seven innings I allowed 7 hits, KO'd 7 and walked 3.  

When I got back to the states I played on my high school team as a catcher.  I started the first game of the season.  The first batter got on base and tried to steal and I threw him out.  The second batter got on base and I threw him out.  That was pretty much the highlight of my high school career.  The St. Louis Cardinals organization sent a scout to watch me play - I still have the letter - but alas, nothing ever came of it. 

In graduate school I played in two softball leagues.  One was the SMSNMW League - aka "Saturday Morning Softball No Matter What." My biggest contribution to that league (I was one of the founding members) was the creation of the coveted "Havens Award" named after Bruce Havens - a utility player on our team who had a knack for making the simplest play look spectacular.  The award (a lucite figure of a baseball player I found in a thrift store to which I glued a picture of Bruce's face) was awarded after each game to the player who had made the most "Havens' like play" of the game. The name of each winner was recorded in a notebook.  The league, and the award, live on to this day.  

[DrungoHazewood]

I've recounted this in bits and pieces in other threads, but I'll do it again:

- Played countless backyard, street, and sandlot games as a kid.  Often one-on-one, two-on-two, and sometimes one-on-one with an all-time pitcher.  I kept stats on graph paper that I posted on the fridge.  I hit .951 with 120 homers in 1982.

- Went 8-for-10 in my Little League career.  Someone outed me for being three weeks too old and I got kicked out of the league, even though I was the smallest player on the team.  Stole a base off two of my buddies who went on to play high school ball.  All of my hits were line drives up the middle.  Played some shortstop, as well as first base as I was the only player on the team who could dig a short-hop ball out of the dirt.

- Played a bit of backyard whiffle ball.  I had a ridiculous slider that broke 10' and was totally unhittable.  Which also contributed to my (assumed) torn rotator cuff.

- Played church and Pax River intermural softball from roughly 1990 through 2006.  Started off as a shortstop/center fielder.  I had little power but got on base constantly and was really fast, I often led off.  Most of my hits went right through the pitcher's box.  Managed my Pax River team for a few years.  I've long had problems with my right arm/shoulder, and at some point it got painful enough that I shifted to the outfield full time and my last year I played left-handed.

When my oldest was on the way my wife told me I couldn't play sports five days a week, which was completely reasonable.  So I dropped softball and just played indoor soccer.  I've only played a handful of softball games since*.  My youngest played a few seasons of T-ball, my oldest then took 18 months off from soccer to play baseball.  But both have been back to soccer full-time for about three years.  They're both my kids, small and really fast/quick, so their skill set suits soccer better.  My oldest's baseball career involved a lot of pounding the ball into the ground towards third and beating the throw to first.

* Had a work softball game a few years ago where I had a side bet with another branch head.  His team won, so somewhere there exists a picture of me in an ARod Yanks jersey.  And I have a Yanks' hat signed by the other branch to remind me of my dishonor.

[CarrRun49]

Long time lurker. First time poster, awaiting my account to be approved. I miss Orioles baseball.

 

I played baseball throughout my life and was the game I loved most. Tee-Ball, Little League, Travel, AAU, Select, and on to College.  I played with local travel teams from age 7 to 14.  Transitioned over to AAU and Select ball thereafter.  My Dad would drive me from Northern Harford County, multiple times a week, to Southern Anne Arundel County for practice.  The highlight of my baseball career was when I tried out for a select team that was compromised of the Orioles own, LJ Hoes, former orioles farmhand Jeff Kemp, and others that would continue to go on and play D1 baseball or get drafted.  I stepped to the plate for my try out and LJ was on the mound. First pitch, line drive double off into the left center gap.  Went on to make the team, starting RF for 3 additional years and place 17th at Nationals. 

Most recently, I find it much more difficult to hit a much larger softball (adult beverages may be consumed), but can track them with the best of them. I have now retired from the game I love, with a growing family and the need for little ones and their dad.  Nothing crazy, but since some old orioles and farmhands were involved, I wanted to post.

 

Thanks and hope to add some insight in the future!