Softball swing

Prisoners play a lot of softball; few play baseball. The softball played is slow pitch where the ball is arced 6 to 9 feet in the air and the batter will use an exaggerated upper cut to hit the steeply falling ball. Often the batter will “step in the hole” meaning that the back foot is moved backward and downward suddenly during the swing. The result of it is that the head moves a great deal. This does not matter much in slow pitch softball, but it is death in fast pitch hardball.

            The whole thing is that the head moves way too much for a batter with a softball swing to hit a baseball thrown at seventy miles per hour or faster. The brain tracks the trajectory of the ball and with reasonable hand-eye coordination, the bat will meet the ball. Or, at least a good baseball swing, with less head movement, has a better chance to put a ball in play.

            Adrian “Red” Casey, a Black man with red hair and blue eyes, our captain, number four hitter and first baseman, due to playing softball for a whole lot of years, understandably came up with an awful softball-style swing. For a couple of years he was going for the home run record, which is thirteen, but in the last twelve games this year he is batting under 200 with no homers. Red and I have had our disagreements over the years. Indeed, for two seasons he was mad at me and only talked to me if he had to. Last week I could see he was desperate.

            Red was voted the team captain this year over last year’s choice, Johnny Taylor, for the first time ever. Two games in a row he was taken out of the game for a player who I hoped might have a better chance of putting the ball in play. Red no longer had that coveted clean-up role. Before I made the moves, I told Red what was happening and he just looked at me and nodded. He knew why.

            A week ago, June 20, I asked Red if I could talk to him about his swing. Not that I know that much about hitting a baseball, but I ended up playing in two scrimmage games and was hitting .500 with only one strike out. Not bad for a sixty-nine year old guy. Funny thing, the players paid more attention to my instruction after that, and Red did too. He wanted some help.

            I showed him what I knew. Negative load, front foot down first before the swing begins, arms in close, swing pretty much straight down, level the bat through the zone, then a slight up with the bat in the follow through. That and discipline yourself as best you can, unless of course you have two strikes on you already, to swing at pitches you can hit without reaching for the pitch. Standard stuff, taught at most high schools, standard in college and professional levels, but not the rule in prisons due to the softball swing.

            The lesson lasted less than two minutes. Red grabbed the bat out of my hands and said, “I got it coach; I’ll have it for next game.”

            He did too, well not the next game but this very last one. It took him a little longer to adjust than he thought. I could not have done it. I barely have it down and I was at it forever it seems before I was able to keep myself from striding while swinging. For fifty plus years I have been swinging the bat wrongly so that if I hit it, it would be largely an accident. Had to “re-pattern” my muscles and my mind.

            I’m proud of Red, surprised too. Murder two, long, long sentence, not sure he will ever get out, but as a muscular solid athlete hitting from the left side it sure will be nice to see him loft a few over our short-porch in right field.