The Piano Man vs The Deuce

Eric Caron was a backup first-baseman on the JV squad in 1985. Much like me, most of his time on game days was spent fetching foul balls. Apparently the school budget only allowed for ten baseballs per year, so whenever a stray ball made it into the woods behind the backstop, a veritable legion of backups were dispatched in search of the missing spheroid.

On some days in practice I would be asked to pitch BP or as part of simulated games. I certainly didn’t have a pitcher’s arm or the type of stuff and repertoire that would allow me to pitch a live game. But I had a strong arm and could throw with some velocity and, occasionally, even some movement. Even less occasionally, the movement was actually intentional.

During pitcher/catcher warm-ups that day, I tried throwing a few curveballs along with the regular junk and missed the strike zone badly on nearly every one. Still, when it came time to throw some live simulations, the curveball, aka, The Deuce was summoned.

Eric stepped to the plate. I quickly ran the count to 0-2 using my offspeed stuff (regular speed=50mph; changeup=35mph). Coach Taylor was a step off the mound, calling pitches in a low voice.

Coach Taylor: “Go ahead…give him the deuce.”
Me: “I dunno coach…it’s not working too well today.”
Coach Taylor: “Give him the deuce.”

I’m the student, he’s the teacher. Enough said.

I reared back and fired in what was supposed to be a curveball, except of course that it in no way curved. Instead, as Eric turned away towards the backstop it hit him squarely in the back with a loud, painful thud.

Eric: “F*******CCCCKKKK!”
Me: “Dude, I’m totally sorry!”

No tempers flared, but a few minutes were spent with Eric walking around a bit to allow the pain to dissipate. Since we were doing game simulations, he didn’t trot down to first but instead eventually returned to the batter’s box.

Me: “Dude, really, I didn’t mean it.”
Eric: “S’okay. But that did kinda hurt.”
Me: “Sorry.”

Back on the mound, I turned to Coach Taylor for the pitch selection. Perhaps Franklin Pierce Adams believed "Tinker to Evers to Chance" were the saddest of possible words, but on that day the saddest of possible words for me were much different:

Coach Taylor: “Try the deuce again.”
Me: “Coach…I can’t get it over today.”
Coach Taylor: “Give him the deuce.”

If nothing else, my career was exemplary for its consistency. As I released the would-be curve ball, it again curved in no manner. Eric once again turned his back to the mound and, once again, it hit him squarely in the back, almost in the same exact location.

And once again, the reaction was the same, though a bit louder:

Eric: “F**************CCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!”
Me: (quietly) “Crap.”
Eric: (again) “F****************CCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!”

Coach Taylor, observing Eric who was no doubt in sincere pain at this point as he flung his bat and then helmet against the chain-link fence, was unmoved by the circumstances and consistent in his resolve to maintain the integrity of his infamous Rules and Regulations:

Coach Taylor: “Caron! Gary Lane!!!”

Stupefied by this announcement, Eric stormed off the field, never to be seen on the EAHS diamond again. It is not known whether or not he actually completed the run of Gary Lane prior to his imminent retirement from Bluehawk Baseball.

One and Done

Our family moved to the Exeter area in mid-October of my sophomore year. With the approach of Spring, I did as I had always done and tried out for the school baseball team. Not having any extraordinary talents to speak of, I knew making the varsity was not possible, though I believed making the JV squad was realistic.

I made the team and as the beginning of the season approached, I was still unsure as to my team “status”. Most of the starting positions were filled by obvious starters, but the outfield still had an opening in left field. My younger sister, Casie, who was an 8th-grader at the adjacent junior high, was also a gym class student for Coach Taylor, whose day job was as a Phys Ed instructor next door. The word on the street was that I may be slated to open the JV season for the EAHS Bluehawks in left field.

It was a cool, gray, rainy day as the season opened that Saturday morning in early April. As had been rumored, when the starting lineup was announced shortly before game time, I had been penciled in at left field and were to bat low in the order, quite possibly ninth, if memory serves me correctly.

It was pretty much downhill from there. Not just for that day, but the rest of the season. And all seasons to follow.

In the top of the 1st, with two outs and runners at 1st and 2nd, an opposing batter lifted a towering fly ball to left, near the foul line and adjacent bleachers. Running initially at full steam with a good track on the ball, I soon pulled up short to avoid crashing into the stands (which were empty and completely devoid of any spectators). The ball dropped to the ground a few feet from me…in fair territory. Both runners scored and the batter waltzed into second. Of course in the box score it looked like a 350-foot gapper to the fence, but that wasn’t how it happened in reality.

It’s possible that my starter status could have survived, or even improved, except for one minor additional incident: the bottom of the 1st inning.

The EAHS squad managed to put together a few hits and I came to bat with two outs and the bases loaded (recalling this, I tend to think I was batting sixth instead of ninth because I don’t believe we’d yet scored in the 1st inning). It was then that a second cardinal sin of Coach Taylor’s Rules and Regulations precipitated itself, Rule Number 12. With a 2-2 count, a pitch came in which I thought was well outside. Apparently the home plate umpire thought differently as he quickly rung me up. I slinked back to the bench with the bat still on my shoulder and a backward ‘K’ in the book.

Coach Taylor--bless his heart—gave me a partial benefit of the doubt, allowing me to finish out another inning in the field. But when the 3rd inning commenced, he requested in not so many words that I find a comfortable position on the bench. I quietly sat down, closed the clasp on my ball and chain, and winced as my good friend and teammate, Ram, was summoned to The Position Where Bench Players Go To Die.

“Ramrod, left field!”

The Legend of Gary Lane

Baseball tryouts at Exeter Area High School would inevitably begin each year in the high school gym, usually due to the presence of significant snowfall still on the ground. Most seasons were initiated by a pep talk or lecture from varsity coach Bill Taylor, a true legend in his own right. Coach Taylor was a physical education teacher at the adjacent junior high, as well as the varsity football and basketball coach at the high school. In short, Bill Taylor was high school sports at Exeter.

The opening lecture each year, while slightly varied in content, would reliably migrate to the topic of several taboo items for would-be members of the baseball team: no smoking—or “butts”, as Coach Taylor called them; no drinking; no weed (“funny butts”, per Coach Taylor); and no swearing, especially no F-bombs. The first three offenses were typically handled under normal disciplinary means meted out by high school policy regarding students and athletes. The final category of offenses was a punishment known by only two words: Gary Lane.

Gary Lane was a short, nondescript street running East-West between Linden and Court Streets. With Pine Street flanking the “box” to the North and also running East-West, the four streets formed a short 1.81mi route. During Winter/Spring workouts, this excursion was seemingly innocuous as the entire legion of baseballers would traipse ploddingly around the course circumference at the outset of each practice. But during the season, the exercise was more punitive in nature. Caught using the f-bomb during practice? “Gary Lane!” cried out Coach Taylor. Missed a sign or the cutoff man during drills? “Gary Lane!” screamed Coach Taylor. Late for practice with no apparent pre-determined excuse in hand? Normally even the two magical words were not required. Instead one would hurriedly show up—albeit late, approach Coach Taylor as he carefully surveyed the practice in progress and, upon viewing the icy stare from his eyes, one would simply veer off course and begin the 1.81mi journey.

Magna cum mediocris

I was an above-average baseball player in my day. This is to say, I was no better—or worse, for that matter—than about half of the other five million kids playing at the time. Yet like many other baseball players who still pine for the glory days of youth, the passage of time has promoted the normal aggrandizement of the truth to these stories of better days long since passed.

Humble beginnings served to begat a soon humbled player. Most of my “career” was spent playing centerfield, a position requiring a fair amount of athleticism to cover a large amount of territory. This served only to mislead me into thinking that I was blessed with some modicum of aptitude. Future events would prove otherwise. While there is no room to argue against my having won the Green Team (Harding Township, NJ) MVP Award in 1980, one could easily make the argument about competing against a somewhat thin talent pool.

Perhaps the pinnacle of my young career came in a late-season game in 1982 in which I led off against a hapless visiting team with a home run—the legged out variety, since we had no fences—and subsequently collected a triple and single in successive at-bats. Rather than give me the chance to collect an elusive cycle, I received my one and only IBB in my fifth plate appearance that day. But in those ensuing years after Little League, I enjoyed fewer shining moments as my junior high teams played against better regional competition and as well I advanced to the Babe Ruth Baseball level.

Fantasy was crossly bitch-slapped by reality in the spring of 1983, when I was cut from the Madison High School (NJ) baseball team. I can still vividly recall to this day the moment I reviewed the “cut list” at the end of the week of tryouts, for it is seared in my mind as clearly as the time…ok, “times”…that Sharon Burd declined my advances for a post-date kiss. Checking the list, then checking it twice, read it again, the results were not nice. In a moment of uncomfortable masculine tenderness, I shared a man-hug with fellow cut victim Chris Stone, as we commiserated in our newly discovered athletic mediocrity. This was considered an acceptable reaction due to the fact that both of us were well-documented high school geeks and no one else was around to see the interaction.

Destiny would intervene, and in October 1983 our family relocated to East Kingston, NH. In the baseball season that followed, I would prosper as an integral piece in the history of baseball mediocrity in Exeter, New Hampshire.