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Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Ok I have a personal one. I've played softball once in my life. When I was a kid I would spend all day at the park. If I didn't have anybody to play with, and I had gotten sick of shooting baskets or doing self-toss into the backstop, I would go into the woods behind the OF fence on one of the fields and get baseballs that nobody retrieved (I don't think I ever remember myself or my father ever actually buying balls). Well one I emerged from the woods to find that a slowpitch pickup game had been started by some adults. I literally walked out of the woods right onto their field. They asked me if I wanted to play and I said sure...they called me Shoeless Joe for the whole game.
 
Aug 25, 2019
1,066
113
Ok I have a personal one. I've played softball once in my life. When I was a kid I would spend all day at the park. If I didn't have anybody to play with, and I had gotten sick of shooting baskets or doing self-toss into the backstop, I would go into the woods behind the OF fence on one of the fields and get baseballs that nobody retrieved (I don't think I ever remember myself or my father ever actually buying balls). Well one I emerged from the woods to find that a slowpitch pickup game had been started by some adults. I literally walked out of the woods right onto their field. They asked me if I wanted to play and I said sure...they called me Shoeless Joe for the whole game.
I was just thinking about that tonight, all the balls acquired. About 3 years ago I bought a bucket with 12 balls for my DD. She was hitting tonight in the basement and I have 31 balls, never bought another one after that initial 12. I never stole any, just knew that certain fields have locations next to it that people really don't go to retrieve balls.
 
Jul 29, 2013
6,782
113
North Carolina
My next door neighbor isn't working and he's in serious yard work mode right now. He has a gigantic Holly bush, you know, the kind that will eat your arm off if you get it anywhere close to it! This monster is probably 12' tall and almost as wide, guess he decided to tackle it this week.

My wife called me at work and said "you should see the box of old balls the neighbor just brought over!"

2 footballs.
4 wiffle balls.
4 baseballs.
7 softballs!

Yeah, that side of the yard got a LOT of playing time when the kids were younger, I figured there was a couple of softballs in there, but not this many total. Man those balls were nasty, box felt like it weighed 25 pounds, they went straight into the trashcan!
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
My next door neighbor isn't working and he's in serious yard work mode right now. He has a gigantic Holly bush, you know, the kind that will eat your arm off if you get it anywhere close to it! This monster is probably 12' tall and almost as wide, guess he decided to tackle it this week.

My wife called me at work and said "you should see the box of old balls the neighbor just brought over!"

2 footballs.
4 wiffle balls.
4 baseballs.
7 softballs!

Yeah, that side of the yard got a LOT of playing time when the kids were younger, I figured there was a couple of softballs in there, but not this many total. Man those balls were nasty, box felt like it weighed 25 pounds, they went straight into the trashcan!
Hey the waterlogged balls will be just fine if you lay them out in the sun for a while..granted the ones I found probably were not sitting there for 5 years :LOL:
 
Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
Cliff Notes Version:
-DD was having a rough day at SS, back on her heels the whole game.
-Eventually after an error I yelled out from behind LF fence to get off your heels.
-Since she a) was 9 b) had just made an error and c) was already mad at herself, this made her cry (I am an idiot)
-Young lady umpire at this point turns around and stares at me (she was correct to do this since I was an idiot)
-Since I am mad I yell to her "What are you looking at, I am not that good looking"
-Umpire then kicks me out, but I am already 2 feet from the parking lot so I walk 2 feet and ask if that is ok?
-She then kicks me out of the complex.
-I proceed to chuck my water at the fence but miss and it goes onto the field.
-As I am walking back to my hotel (which was about 7 miles away..that was quite a walk) cop stops me and tells me they called the cops on me for trying to hit the lady with a water bottle (note this was a gallon water bottle, I was behind the fence
and the umpire was standing at SS
-Eventually I was let go but couldn't go to any more games

Moral to the story, I was an idiot.
Wow I feel so much better. I am not that bad. In fact I am a peaceful man of high moral standard! LOL
 

BigSkyHi

All I know is I don't know
Jan 13, 2020
1,385
113
Last November I was asked to help with a pitching clinic for 8 & 9 year olds. Told them in all my years of coaching I had never coached fast pitchers but I am an avid student of the game and would study. So I studied the You tube instruction they gave me.

At the 1st one-hour practice one coach and I showed up eight girls. Followed his lead helping the little ones out. At the end of practice he told the girls, the parents and myself he would no longer be at any practices. YIKES!

At the 2nd practice I followed the lead of the Youtube and the 1st practice and was totally disappointed in the results all of the kids were having. Seeing how ALL of the girls were having bad results, I k new it was the coach. Went to Youtube and studied for many hours on anything I could find. Discovered it was the ‘HE’; the silly wrist flips to start warming up; and the lack of core strength due to the young age of the girls.

3rd practice ‘IR’ was the focus. Kids were about 20 feet from their catchers (aka parents) during full wind up.

At the end of the 4th one-hour session, I set a ball on a tee 40 feet away from them. Three of them hit the ball and all of them were throwing bullets near and above the plate.

Just want to say how grateful I am for the willingness to share by all that helped learn including you all on this site.
 
Jul 29, 2013
6,782
113
North Carolina
Last November I was asked to help with a pitching clinic for 8 & 9 year olds. Told them in all my years of coaching I had never coached fast pitchers but I am an avid student of the game and would study. So I studied the You tube instruction they gave me.

At the 1st one-hour practice one coach and I showed up eight girls. Followed his lead helping the little ones out. At the end of practice he told the girls, the parents and myself he would no longer be at any practices. YIKES!

At the 2nd practice I followed the lead of the Youtube and the 1st practice and was totally disappointed in the results all of the kids were having. Seeing how ALL of the girls were having bad results, I k new it was the coach. Went to Youtube and studied for many hours on anything I could find. Discovered it was the ‘HE’; the silly wrist flips to start warming up; and the lack of core strength due to the young age of the girls.

3rd practice ‘IR’ was the focus. Kids were about 20 feet from their catchers (aka parents) during full wind up.

At the end of the 4th one-hour session, I set a ball on a tee 40 feet away from them. Three of them hit the ball and all of them were throwing bullets near and above the plate.

Just want to say how grateful I am for the willingness to share by all that helped learn including you all on this site.
Stories like this are what this site is all about, well gloves also! ;) Thanks for sharing!
 
Jan 8, 2019
664
93
My next door neighbor isn't working and he's in serious yard work mode right now. He has a gigantic Holly bush, you know, the kind that will eat your arm off if you get it anywhere close to it! This monster is probably 12' tall and almost as wide, guess he decided to tackle it this week.

My wife called me at work and said "you should see the box of old balls the neighbor just brought over!"

2 footballs.
4 wiffle balls.
4 baseballs.
7 softballs!

Yeah, that side of the yard got a LOT of playing time when the kids were younger, I figured there was a couple of softballs in there, but not this many total. Man those balls were nasty, box felt like it weighed 25 pounds, they went straight into the trashcan!

When I was a kid, I had MAYBE two baseballs to my name. Whenever they went out with me, I did not come home until I had whatever balls I left with. Every LL team I was on was the same: coach came out with X number of balls, and no on left the field until x balls were accounted for, and they were used until the covers came off, not slightly unstiched, came completely OFF (and then the coach would hit them over our fence in an attempted show of macho, yes, back then it was "macho" they were going for).

FFWD to today, I have an orange bucket of baseballs that is about 90% full (~50-60 balls?). I have purchased maybe 4 of these, and coaches gave DS about another 2-4. EVERY time DS goes to an open field where BB practice is capable of being held, he will come back with a ball, if not a BB, it's a LAX ball, often times, both.

I have purchased several dozen SBs, but that's so our teams have nice balls for throwing. I have about 3 buckets of hitting balls, 90% of which have also been found not purchased.

On the other side of that, I think I have only "lost" about a half dozen balls (BB and SB combined) to the environment, and I think most of those were in Chula Vista where they were stuck in cacti with a risk of rattlesnakes and our games were getting ready to start. All other attrition of balls I can attribute to being "borrowed" during practices (probably from some guy who has a bucket of balls he has never purchased?!!?).
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
When I was a kid, I had MAYBE two baseballs to my name. Whenever they went out with me, I did not come home until I had whatever balls I left with. Every LL team I was on was the same: coach came out with X number of balls, and no on left the field until x balls were accounted for, and they were used until the covers came off, not slightly unstiched, came completely OFF (and then the coach would hit them over our fence in an attempted show of macho, yes, back then it was "macho" they were going for).

FFWD to today, I have an orange bucket of baseballs that is about 90% full (~50-60 balls?). I have purchased maybe 4 of these, and coaches gave DS about another 2-4. EVERY time DS goes to an open field where BB practice is capable of being held, he will come back with a ball, if not a BB, it's a LAX ball, often times, both.

I have purchased several dozen SBs, but that's so our teams have nice balls for throwing. I have about 3 buckets of hitting balls, 90% of which have also been found not purchased.

On the other side of that, I think I have only "lost" about a half dozen balls (BB and SB combined) to the environment, and I think most of those were in Chula Vista where they were stuck in cacti with a risk of rattlesnakes and our games were getting ready to start. All other attrition of balls I can attribute to being "borrowed" during practices (probably from some guy who has a bucket of balls he has never purchased?!!?).
I have found some very nice softballs/baseballs laying around fields..it just amazes me that people leave them. I know exactly how many softballs (67), baseballs (41) and wiffles (38) we have and whenever we hit I make sure we have all of them accounted for...Yes I am strange but like you baseballs were like gold growing up, as was your glove and bat.
 

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