First before I get started, let’s give everyone an update:
Today is Saturday, April 6. Tomorrow, I will be attending my first formal practice with the Aloha Mets of the MSBL (Site not entirely updated). I thought we’d be getting our uniforms tomorrow, but they’re going to be ordered in a week or two. And it looks like I’ll be getting either number 22 (Jim Palmer’s number! WOOT!) or 13 (Ralph Branca’s! Again, WOOT!). To be honest, they could have given me number 1/3 (Ummm…. Eddie Gaedel’s number. Yeah), and I’d still be thrilled. I did pop something in my neck a few days ago however, and there’s still some discomfort from that, but I think that it should go away by tomorrow.
But here’s why I’m here today.
Before tomorrow comes, I just wanted to get an idea of where I was pitching-wise. I grabbed the old lady, her iPhone, and a radar gun (believe it or not, my next door neighbor has one. Hooray for having hoarder friends!), and went to my special spot under the bridge to get a quick practice in.
So after I did some quick warmups, I was ready to go. I reared back and threw a rather half-hearted fastball. I checked the reading and saw it was 71 mph.
I was surprised at that! I was thinking I was doing pretty awesome if I hit 65. And yet, there it was- six miles over my best estimation… and not even at 3/4 strength. I then screwed around with my offspeed stuff, and then attempted a slightly harder fastball.
The Missus looked at me and said “78”. I misheard her, I thought. “68, right?” I said. She shook her head. “No,” she came back. “Seven. Eight. 78.”
Well… holy shit! I figured I’d give it a full-on go this time. Let’s see how much harder I can go! The very next pitch came in at 85 mph. I thought that was going to be as good as it was gonna get. But still I kept going.
The next pitch I threw, I turned to look at the woman. She looked at me… then she looked at the gun. Then back to me. “91” she finally managed to say.
That can’t be right, I thought. No fucking way that can be right!
But I still kept hurling… and I still kept going. 89 mph, 88…. and so on.
I threw enough to get good averages on all of my pitches. And here’s the list:
4 Seam Fastball: 87 mph
2 Seam Fastball: 82 mph
Palmball: 73 mph
Screwball: 78 mph
Knuckleball: 64 mph
As an added bonus: Here’s a video of me pitching. Here, I throw at three angles- Over, sidearm, and underhand. I’ll let you all figure out which is which.
Wish me luck at my first team practice tomorrow
I ATE YOUR BABY! 