Coming in

Dan just got the call to come in from the pen to face the big lefty, but because there's nothing better than some double barreled action I was up too, and luckily for you the cleanup man is a righty with a problem hitting the deuce, so even though Big Red rolled a two-ball with his first post, the situation still calls for me here.

In the past year, Dan and I have come to realize that we've lived pretty similar lives (at least the important parts).  We're both suburbanites of the greatest city in the world, we both understand the sad beauty that has been created since we left the Most Beautiful Game in the summer of 2009, and most importantly, we were both dominant Little Leaguers that hit our primes around age 13 and then slowly became situational relievers as we reached the all-too-early twilight of our careers.  We've shared our stories from the bullpen with each other, and now we'd like to share them with you.  Dan was a lefty long-reliever with a helluva changeup and I was a closer without much but a 58 mph curveball that dropped from the nose to the toes, so I'm fairly confident that if we ever would've had the privilege of sitting out in left field together we would've complimented each other pretty well.  Hopefully we can do the same with this little project.

There are probably a lot of things that we could be doing that would be a lot more productive than this, but sometimes you just need to sit out in the pen, throw in a cheekful of seeds, play a little toss, enjoy the summer breeze, and only half-hope that you actually get called in to pitch, because the beauty of baseball can rarely be found on a scorecard, it's found in the little moments that surround the game.  Dan mentioned that this wasn't about the walk-off hits, big strikeouts, or gutsy performances that beat the odds, and while I suspect he only said that because he never actually did any of those things, he's 100% correct.  So pass around the bag of David Original, pull your hat down low over your eyes, and enjoy.