Another thread I had started is turning into me and iampunha trading stories from our high school sporting days, and I want to know what everyone else here has done. I used to play baseball, and although I was never a great hitter, I was great with the glove at 2nd base, nicknamed ‘Hoover’ by my teammates my sophomore year.
Here’s my stats for my high school seasons:
Freshman - .186, 0 homeruns, 12 RBIs, 19 stolen bases
Sophomore - .212, 0 homeruns, 15 RBIs, 28 stolen bases
Junior - .216, 1 homerun (inside the park), 10 RBIs, 23 stolen bases
Senior - .274, 2 homeruns, 24 RBIs, 27 stolen bases
So as you can see, I was no Mark McGwire or Tony Gwynn. But, I once made an unassisted triple play, and turned more double plays in 1990 than anyone else in the history of my school. In 1991, I had one error in 65 games
(that’s counting our pre-season and post season games, the actual season was only 42 games). And I usually get people asking how can you make an unassisted triple play – here’s how:
I’m playing second base, runners are on first and second. The runners take off after the pitch for the hit and run, I break to 2nd to cover the bag and reflexes take over as I see the line drive coming my direction. I dove for it and caught it, out #1. When I landed, my outstretched hand landed on 2nd base, so the runner heading for third didn’t get back in time, out #2. The runner from first slipped stopping too quickly trying to double back, and I easily tagged him out, out #3.
Unfortunately, that was overshadowed by teammate Joe Thomson, our center fielder, hitting 3 homeruns that game.
In case you’re wondering, that jump in batting average from my junior to senior year came from the coach working with me in the offseason to develop my batting eye. He had the pitcher pitch around me, and if I swung at a bad ball I had to sprint around the bases.