Face It

My face is unfamiliar to me. It’s not like I remember it – thin and babyish, which led my father to call me ‘Babyface.’

That nickname led to a great deal of annoyance on my part, especially when I was pitching. Dad would call out from the stands, “Come on, Babyface. Throw a strike!” It got results, of course, in part because I was a control pitcher and a little extra focus and incentive – thanks, Dad – helped me find the strike zone.

My fastball topped out at 79 mph, so I had to be a control pitcher. I had a decent curve and a good change-up, along with an occasional sidearm fastball that tailed away from left-handed hitters. All together, my repertoire was enough for me to get by as a pitcher through the age of 15 or so. After that, there were bigger and faster pitchers who threw fastballs in the mid-80s. I faced a few of those guys and waved at a few blurs going through the strike zone.

Probably my finest game as a pitcher was back in 1969, when our Wildcats played the first game of the minor-league season. I was 9, too young to be eligible for the majors, and we were featured in this opening game at the major league field at Rancho, which was a big deal. We Wildcats won 3-2. If you’ve ever seen a minor league Little League game, you know that that was a pitchers’ duel.

There were no pitch-count rules back then. About the only rule I can remember was that every kid had to play at least two innings in each game.

My Dad was 51 at the time – about my age, in other words. I wonder what he thought of his face?