04/24/24
July 01, 2007
Life in a Cage, Baby Sleeps, Mom Cooks, Dad Bats: 'When Amber Willets is cooking dinner -crack!, or putting the kid to bed -crack!......she has to wonder why she agreed to live in a batting cage.
posted by tommytrump to baseball at 09:36 AM - 10 comments
Honey, pass the salt, and take your batting helmet off when you're at the dinner table!
posted by tommybiden at 09:47 AM on July 01, 2007
If she is free, she feeds balls into the pitching machine. Amber stands behind an L-Screen, the kind used to protect batting-practice pitchers. Still, line drives sometimes rip through the screen. “I know she’s taken a few in the helmet,” said Mickey Hatcher, the Angels’ hitting coach. That's my new euphemism for a psycho ex-girlfriend -- she's taken a few in the helmet.
posted by Rock Steady at 01:11 PM on July 01, 2007
The results are speaking for themselves but OMG is this funny!
posted by billsaysthis at 02:00 PM on July 01, 2007
What a terrific story. Anyone want to give me odds on the kid being a big-time prospect some day?
posted by wfrazerjr at 02:04 PM on July 01, 2007
I love the way they didn't finish building their house. "I know! We'll live in the batting cage!" Inspired...
posted by Drood at 02:38 PM on July 01, 2007
What a terrific story. Anyone want to give me odds on the kid being a big-time prospect some day? Probably about the same as him turning into Todd Marinovich.
posted by Bonkers at 03:21 PM on July 01, 2007
My daughter thinks this is awesome. "Move the couch, we're gonna take some batting practice!"
posted by mr_crash_davis at 07:50 PM on July 01, 2007
Heading into spring training, the Angels knew they could count on veteran players like Vladimir Guerrero. Reggie, on the other hand, was just a kid in a cage. Great line. I picked this kid up in both SpoFi fantasy leagues after his first couple of stolen bases, and sure wish I'd kept him on my roster(s).
posted by The_Black_Hand at 09:41 AM on July 02, 2007
I'm surprised more people don't do this- or something similar. The best in the game have things like video studios to analyze their swing, in-home batting cages, etc... but a batting cage is not THAT expensive thing to have, especially if you think you have any shot at making it. It's kind of like how people go on shows like American Idol or Rockstar and seem surprised at how they look on stage: do they not ever consider getting a cheap digital video camera and recording themselves? Plugging a microphone into their computer and just listening? I mean, almost every story about a great achiever, in sports or otherwise, involves anecdotes about obsessive practice and routine- stories of people dribbling the ball everywhere they went, taking batting practice all day every day, spending hours on the putting green, or in general finding that area they aren't already skilled in and obsessively doing THAT instead of the stuff they're good at. Even Mozart, perhaps the greatest child prodigy in history, is said to have spent more hours practicing his composing and playing (thanks to an obsessive father) by an early age than most skilled musicians of his time would have logged well into adulthood. The point is that difference between good and great is not just talent: talent takes you a far way, but the last distance comes from hard work. Put in the hours, swing after swing until your hands bleed from the blisters, and you'll end up a hot hitting ROY contender. So why don't more players- either in the majors already, or on the cusp- do stuff like this?
posted by hincandenza at 12:49 PM on July 02, 2007
Bah! Jinxed! (I wasted time using the NYTimes reg-free link generator)