It is difficult to imagine that the same mood lifting benefits of psychotropic drugs cannot be obtained just as easily from watching a Major League batting practice in February.
From the first crack you realize your days of hibernation and living off the stored fat of replays are over. You no longer need to scrape nutrients from the depleted fields of vapid rumors. The fog lifts and you remember what baseball was like. The offseason depression lifts. Baseball is close. (This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. If you suspect you or someone you know is suffering from depression, look for symptoms including, but not limited to: Loss of appetite, feeling ìburdensomeî to others, or watching nearly a decade of Raysí Baseball.)
Friday the Raysí held batting practice thrown by both pitchers and coaches. Shawn Camp, JP Howell, Steve Andrade and Chris Seddon each threw a round of BP.
Live batting practice gives the batters an exercise in pitch selection, as well as affording Jim Hickey an opportunity to look at the pitchersí mechanics.
Each batter got 4 pitches, including breaking balls, and were not expected to swing at anything other than strikes. So when Delmon Young swung wildly through his final pitch, a sound of disapproval came from those coaches watching.
ìThat was a ball, right?î Young asked Shawn Riggans as he exited the cage.
I wasnít catching, but yes Delmon, it was.
This fancy batting practice lacked the kind of gratuitous ball crushing I came for; Iwamura did not even swing at one of his four pitches dished out by Howell. But when the coach got behind the screen and started throwing meat balls to Young, Crawford and Baldelli, I was a pleased camper.
The greatest display came from Crawford. He slapped line drives to every field and showed serious power. He hit the most out of the yard, including one smile-inducing beauty that cleared well above the 400 sign.
Baldelli and Young didnít disappoint either.
Baldelli put on a good show, spraying liners and knocking a few out. But Young was scary with his bat.
I almost felt sorry for the balls with the force of his swing and the sound it made coming off the bat. The ball ripped to all fields, possibly breaking the sound barrier more than once.
Iwamuraís fancy bats didnít hit too fancy, nor did Cantuís normal bats. You could tell Gomes was batting just by the sound of his swing, and he won the award for farthest ball hit; a towering (and I mean towering) shot that bounced off the clubhouse roof in left. So what if it was foul? This was batting practice and I was there to see balls hit roofs and hopefully break not-my-car window.
But the Award for Awesome Awesomeness went to Ty Wigginton.
With the enthusiasm of a man berserk with love, he turned and waved wildly at his family (including the tiny, self-delivered Cannon) who were watching from behind the backstop. He then stepped to the plate, pushed down his helmet and went to work.
February 25th, 2007 at 11:47 am
My favorite quote of BP:
POWER BALL: OF Jonny Gomes put on another power show, launching one ball that landed with a thud on the roof of the clubhouse well beyond the 340-foot sign on the leftfield fence and two others that smashed windshields of cars parked- foolishly - just beyond the fence. "He starts hitting and there’s crashing noises and broken glass," Baldelli said