The World Series is not yet over, but snow fell in parts of Pennsylvania yesterday, and I woke up this morning with my skin feeling dry. So dry that several calluses on my left hand were peeling.
I stared at them for a while after I got out of the shower, trying to figure out what they were from. What could I have been doing that built up a callus there, on my left hand, on the pads between the second and third knuckle of my grip?
I think these are my batting calluses, finally wearing off, nearly 14 months after I played my final game of hardball.
I used to go to the batting cage at least once a week. It was bit the way other people must make surreptitious stops at bars and whorehouses. Sometimes I’d make a special trip and plan to go to the cage, but more often than not, in my busy life, trying to fit baseball in around two jobs, community volunteering, writing, editing, and socializing, I’d have to sneak in a trip on my way to or from somewhere else.
I’d go to the Home Depot near the cage instead of the hardware store closer to my house, to justify the trip. I’d meet friends at the movie theater near there, but leave an hour early so I could get some hitting in, first.
I’d bring batting gloves with me on vacation. I’ve hit in batting cages in Aruba, Florida, the Jersey Shore. (Never did find one in Mexico, though.)
My car still has a pile of Iron Mike tokens in the ashtray.
But my last two years playing, I hardly went to the cage at all. I was too busy. My work life has gotten more and more pressing (which is good, it means I’m earning more through writing and editing). Just making time to get to the games I was supposed to play in was getting harder and harder.
And it showed on the field. After the season where I batted nearly .500 for fifteen games (and dropped to just under .400 after a slump in the last few – it’s only a 20 game season), my hitting dropped off the following year. The time not spent in the cage was part of it.
My fading eyesight is the other. No, it’s nothing so dramatic as Kirby Puckett—I’m just over 40 now and dusk light is the hardest to see in. The baseball that was bright and white and whose seams I could see spinning easily in the first inning would be dirty and sunset-colored in the fifth, melding into the dying day like a ghost. We play(ed) on a field without lights.
I’s funny, because one would think I’d miss playing baseball the most during the summer, which is when I played, but here it is, more than a full season since I retired and it’s only really hitting me, today. I worked hard for those calluses. I’ll miss them.
Of course, there’s nothing to say I can’t still go to the batting cage…
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