When I took this job in September 2013, one of the first things that Matt Mauney told me during training was about this great video idea he had but never got around to doing.
He filled me in on the story of Durant High’s Chelsea Baker, known as the “Knuckleball Princess,” and said taking an at-bat against her would make for a cool video someday.
Matt and I are both big baseball guys, above everything else, but he has much more playing experience than I — I didn’t play on an organized team throughout high school, middle school or any of that. No matter, though — I’m totally cool with being struck out by someone who was once on HBO.
As it turns out, this video idea is as old as the Observer itself: It was one of the first ideas brought to the table for the Sports section in 2012. It just never came to fruition. But, hey — that set up a fun 30 minutes of filming earlier this week.
I was pretty stoked on Monday, when I made a stop at Snellgrove’s for lunch before going to the office, and the weather was nice. But, because we can’t always have nice things in Florida, I looked out of my office window three hours later and it was raining. No bueno.
Then again, all we had to worry about were the balls getting waterlogged after pitching. I didn’t go to Mike E. Sansone Park expecting to get a hit, in any direction, so a wet diamond wasn’t a problem. We both got to the park at 5:30 p.m., with just enough daylight for clear footage — and just enough cloud cover to where I couldn’t blame my whiffs on the sun’s glare.
Chelsea started warming up on the mound, with no catcher. She placed everything in the center of the big mat below the foul ball fence, and each throw ended with a loud thud, not unlike a bass drum. We were on a Little League field, where the kids don’t ever throw that hard — so, naturally, about 25 to 30 of them came over to see what was happening.
I wasn’t expecting a crowd to watch us but, on that note, I don’t know what I was expecting by shooting this video at the same time those kids are going to practice.
I liked to think that four years of playing softball with my fraternity in a sorority-sponsored tournament helped me play in front of crowds, so that’s where I pictured myself. It was even easier when one kid made fun of my Adrian Beltre-esque swing. Just like my brothers did in college!
But my problem was the fact that, instead of facing a Sigma Chi on the mound and taking an underhanded softball to left field, I was facing someone who once struck out Kevin Millar on national television. She recently returned from a weeklong baseball exodus in Boca Raton, playing in exhibition games; I played a pretty intense game of wiffle ball in Winter Haven last week and had, like, 12 RBI, or something.
I took the first strike looking, just to get a feel for what I’d be going up against. I swung on the second pitch, which broke a lot later than I had expected, and missed by about a mile. It was at this point that I first thought to myself, “I will freak out if I even make contact.”
Chelsea threw a few pitches outside, hoping that I’d chase, but I wasn’t trying to make a complete fool of myself on camera. It might have been my greatest-ever display of patience in the batter’s box: All I wanted was something up the middle, even though I knew I’d be fooled and swing late.
A few pitches later (we planned on keeping a traditional strike counter, but that went out the window), I did make contact. But, I hit one of the laces or something — the top of the ball just grazed the barrel of my bat on its way to the wall. That was cool. I wanted more and vowed to swing on the next pitch, even if she would have thrown it far to the outside.
And then, bam! I got a hit! And I was so caught up in the moment that I forgot to look for the ball.
“It’s right behind you, over there,” Rod Mason, Chelsea’s father, told me.
A foul ball. Whatever! I made contact and the ball went somewhere, so I was content. I took a few more swings just to see if I could make anything else happen, but it wasn’t my lucky day. She did try to encourage me from the mound, telling me I’d hit the next pitch, but that was just her being nice. There are a few reasons why I decided to write about baseball for a living rather than try to become the next David Eckstein, and my inability to hit the breaking ball is one of them.
So, young men of Plant City, listen to me right now: Do not make fun of a friend by saying that he throws like a girl, because girls can strike you out, too.
