Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Ghost, post: 3331129, member: 581"] Long story, so, people that hate my long posts - skip it! Don't complain, just skip it!! Please. I was a Junior in high school. My HS was really good at baseball, but that year we only had a couple REALLY good pitchers, and a lot of pedestrian ones. We played in a tournament in South Carolina, and we were facing off against a team featuring a future #1 draft pick. Needless to say, it was very exciting, as everyone knew the kid was incredibly good, and the team was ranked in some national poll (USA Today). We were good enough to fare pretty well when our #1 and #2 guys pitched, but this game we were pretty much conceding as the plan was to go for broke against every other team and just take the L in this one. Regardless, I was excited to square off against the kid, and figured this was my chance to hit a HR and launch myself into the MLB draft, where I would get drafted, make millions in MLB, develop an amazing cocaine habit, marry Staci Keanan from Step by Step, and eventually buy a house with a basketball court in the basement. So, I stepped to the plate in the second inning, with all my hopes and dreams staring back at me. No more would I be begging my friend's older siblings for coke, I would be getting high on my very own supply! I promptly struck out on three pitches with the last one being a breaking ball that I think may have bounced 3 feet in front of the plate. Anyway, that's not my story, but it did suck - and my dreams died in that moment. Anyway, they pulled the kid after 3 innings, and by then they were beating us like 10-0. Since we were conceding the game and didn't want to use any more pitchers, they turned to me! I had one career Varsity inning pitched, and it was a 3 up, 3 down turn the year before....against a normal HS team. I don't recall the terror exactly as it happened, but it went something like this: First batter up, white kid, double off the wall. Not a bad start. Second batter, black kid, hit him with the pitch. Not great. Third batter, black kid, hit him with the pitch. Not great. Fourth batter, white kid, double or triple. I know mostly it was doubles and triples being hit because I didn't give up a single HR. Although the trend may be noticeable to some of the more astute members of the forum, at this point I had not noticed anything out of sorts. Fifth batter up, black kid, hit him with the pitch. Huh. Something seems odd. Just can't quite put my finger on what it is...yet. Sixth batter up, white kid, double. Seventh batter up, white kid, triple. Okay, things are going well again. I'm not hitting anyone! Eighth batter up, black kid, hit him with the pitch. Ooooooh, now I'm noticing something. There seems to be something very similar about all the kids I'm hitting...but...just...what......is...it? So, at this point, being honest, it's really kind of dawned on me what's happening. Anyway, the reason I didn't pitch much is because I threw pretty slow. I did however throw a fantastic 12/6 curveball. However, it was perhaps thrown slower than anyone has ever pulled off while having the ball make it all the way to home plate on the fly. I topped out on a good day with a fastball that was maybe around 75ish or a tad over. My curveball likely hit about 12 MPH on a good day. That may have been my only saving grace on this very sad day (as a few were being hit by curveballs, and likely couldn't tell they were being hit at all). Ninth batter up, white kid, double! Nice! Somewhere, perhaps at this point, I look at my coach and shrug in the most hapless, "help me" type way I could muster. I may have even made a sad face - like the kind you would do with an emoji today by text, but I did it from the mound - in real life. My Coach, being a bit insane, and a bit violent, was never one to take things like this well. So, he does what he does, and just started screaming, "you're all we got, Ghost. You're all we got," in the angriest voice he could muster. And that man could muster some serious anger. He would scream that many, many, many, more times that day. I think it was how he was coping with my ineptitude without physically attacking me. Significantly, what he said was not true. We had others. We most certainly did. I was NOT "all we got." So, at this point, we restart with another white kid. At some point I got someone out, either this kid, or maybe the white kid before - who knows, but I'll insert it here. He popped out to 3rd base. Next kid up. Black kid. I hit him. At this point I figure I'm about to start a race war in South Carolina, which is rather sad, because at that time I would most certainly have claimed to be the blackest white kid I knew, and likely remained that way for another few years. Then I met this kid Mikey, in college, and then some of his friends, and I realized I wasn't even close to what I thought I was. However, there was no way to explain this to anyone. Not my fans. Not the opposing fans. Not the victims of my racist attack. I just had no way to explain that I grew up loving rap, I watched Boyz-n-Hood 178 times, I had BLACK FRIENDS (all three of them that were in my grade), and spent most of youth screaming "Domino, m*********ers," every time I won at anything, even though I had never played a game of dominoes in my life. :( Well, I had hit the kid, and he picked up the ball, laughed, smiled at me, and tossed it back. Perhaps it was because it was an 18 MPH curveball and he found it amusing. At the moment though, there seemed to be some genuine, "I feel sooooooo bad for you" kindness in his smile, that I'll never be able to express my gratitude for the kindness he showed - as he would have been well within his rights to strike me with a baseball bat. Repeatedly. I'll never know if that kid thought I was a racist or not, but in that moment, whatever was happening stopped, and no more black kids were hit that day. At least by me. I still have no idea how in the world it went down like that.....and I gave up 38 more runs that inning, but I felt okay about it. There was no race war. We shook hands and other than some laughing and smiles while saying "good game," it was all quiet. I never heard the end of it from my own team...but that was to be expected. Oddly, I went like 12-15 from the plate in that tournament, and was otherwise flawless, and did NOT make the all-tournament team. Which I can only assume was because nobody wanted to vote for the racist. :( Lesson: Don't do anything that looks an awful lot like you're insanely racist - it may cost you a trophy. :( I have a ton of sports stories, but I'll stop, as that was stupidly long. My apologies. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?