The Throw
The Throw
By Greg Scheiderer
I started my short career in organized baseball at the wrong end of the defensive spectrum. That didn’t prevent me from making what I simply call “The Throw.”
George Plimpton once groused in print about the indignity of being assigned to play right field, “where the inept and those who are getting on in years are sent.” I broke into baseball at age ten in 1968 as the right fielder for my team in the Cascade Vista Athletic Club in the Seattle suburb of Renton. I don’t remember if our team even had a name, and I think of us now as simply “The Maroons” because that was the color of our sweatshirts and caps.
I went to the first day of CVAC tryouts full of big dreams of baseball heroism. Lou Brock was my favorite player, and I had a pair of official Brock sneakers, made by Converse and billed as “the closest thing to spikes.” My baseball mitt was made of plastic or vinyl or maybe Naugahyde. The Naugahyde wasn’t durable and would split, and my dad would stitch it back together with the flat, waxed twine that was his version of duct tape. He used it on everything.
As I daydreamed during that first workout of smashing mammoth home runs and chasing down line drives in the gaps, the baseball minds of CVAC undoubtedly noticed that I was short, slow, clumsy, weak, and nearsighted. I was assigned to the Maroons under the tutelage of Mr. Maxwell.
In the ancient times before baseball managers had heard of launch angle, Mr. Maxwell coached us in a batting stance in which we held the bat parallel to the ground and kept it that way, the better to hit a ground ball. A fly ball might be caught, but to get an out via grounder required a catch, a throw that got to first ahead of the runner, and another catch. That’s asking for a lot from a bunch of ten-year-olds.
I don’t recall many details about the Maroons’ 1968 season. We played lots of games in the rain and mist—it was June in Renton—and we usually went for ice cream after the games. But I remember The Throw as if it happened yesterday.
I was out in right field during a home contest. It was usually quiet out there because most of the hitters in CVAC batted right handed and pulled the ball to left. The team we played on this day had an actual left-handed hitter with, apparently, Ruthian power. This feared slugger came to the plate with a runner on second and two outs. Mr. Maxwell signaled for me to back up. Further. Further. Further still! I felt like I’d tumble backward into Lake Washington if I took one more step! Finally, I was deemed far enough back. With the defense properly positioned the Bambino could take his cuts.
The kid hit a towering pop fly that, naturally, looped right toward the spot where I usually stood. Running back in from the next town as fast as my Lou Brock sneakers could carry me, I got there just a moment after the ball and speared it on a hop. I saw the kid from second about to make the turn at third, and then everything switched into slow motion. I uncorked a peg to the plate. I watched the beautiful arc of the ball as it sailed homeward and smacked into the catcher’s mitt on the fly. Dude from second was out by ten feet. Inning over; the crowd went wild. I trotted in from right to our bench along the first base line, with a little extra bounce in my step.
I was probably lifted for a pinch hitter.
As a ten-year-old I thought about little else besides baseball. For a dorky kid with extremely limited athletic ability, the reality of playing the game fell far short of what I dreamed about. Nobody really kept statistics, and while in my mind I put it down as a double any time I reached on a two-base error, I most likely came in well below the Mendoza Line. I never bugged the folks to sign me up for little league baseball again.
The Maroons’ old home field is just off the route I would take to visit my parents, and one day as research while writing this story I took the turnoff down memory lane. The field is still there, though the backstop and diamond are gone. There’s little left of many a razed ballpark except a historical marker to remind baseball fanatics that this is a sacred place. As I teared up a little at my personal holy ground, I thought that there should be a plaque there commemorating The Throw—the one brilliant, shining, and enduring moment in a baseball-mad Renton kid’s otherwise unaccomplished athletic life.
Seattle-based freelance writer Greg Scheiderer has been telling stories professionally for more than 30 years through his work in consulting, government, higher education, the arts, and media. His work has been featured in a variety of college magazines and travel periodicals. Favorite topics include baseball, astronomy, theater, music, higher education, and interesting people. For more, you can visit his website.