“I love faltering. I love, in a sense, coming up short. Because you learn nothing from success. You learn so much from failing.”
– Charlie Trotter
Here’s a little explanation of the posts in the Warning Track Power category. These also might be the posts you want to steer away from if you’re not interested in my opinion on topics like philosophy, religion, and the like. Or you might want to steer into them. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You won’t hurt my feelings if you avoid these articles.
It’s named Warning Track Power because I played quite a bit of baseball growing up. Watching baseball has always been pretty boring, but I really, really loved to play. I eventually played well enough to make my high school freshman team as a pitcher. I’m not sure if there’s a name for it but, I looked awesome when just throwing to a catcher, but unfortunately lost it when facing a batter. One time, I even hit a guy in the neck during batting practice. You almost have to try to do that and I don’t even think it hurt him. Against a batter, I couldn’t throw hard and I couldn’t throw strikes. I still can’t figure it out unless I had some weird level of anxiety that doesn’t raise your blood pressure, or make your mind race, or feel anything like anxiety. Needless to say, you don’t hit one of your own teammates in the neck, then start the next game. Or any games. Ever again.
Well, my coach tried me out as a designated hitter and I came through with a base hit in the first game. I learned that designated hitting is the best job in all
In the second game, I had the single greatest offensive game of my career and also heralded the beginning of the end. I went 4 for 5, with a home run and 8
So the next game, I’m in the early stages of cockiness and coming to grips with how I might actually be good at hitting. Maybe the pickoff or confused home run trot kept me somewhat grounded.
Well, I think I led off the second and connected on a 1-2 pitch. I knew I hit it hard as I looked to the first base coach for the home run trot signal. No chance I’d look like an idiot this time. We only had one head coach, so one of my teammates would coach first. I heard him say “it’s gone”. I swear I heard this. So I went into the home run trot I didn’t even know I had. Halfway to second, I realized the shortstop had the ball and there was a play on me at second. I hit the gas (which didn’t help much as I’m not very fast. I’m afflicted with a hereditary disease of being very, very slow). I slid into second just beating the tag. That pretty much sealed it, I didn’t feel much embarrassment or disappointment, even though it must have looked pretty stupid. It didn’t bother me – that tiny bit of humility disappeared and my ego ballooned.
There’s an old joke about a guy going to spring training. The first week he writes his mother he’s doing great, getting tons of hits and is a shoo-in for the team. As his mother patiently awaits his next letter, the boy shows up at the front door, bags in hand. “What happened?” She asks. “They started throwin’ the curve.” All jokes are somewhat based on reality and the opposing starter for game 4 had a wicked curve. One of those that looks like it’s coming at your head then breaks hard into the strike zone. I popped out weakly, then struck out like 3 times. To be a little more concise, I struck out a lot more that season, all the while swinging as hard as I could in hopes of recapturing the brief magic. Eventually, the coach benched me, but I still ate a ton of sunflower seeds, which is still pretty great. To take it a little further, I didn’t make the team as a sophomore and my baseball career effectively ended. (In college, a friend and I decided that we were at least good enough to try out for the River City Rascals, a local independent minor league team. Decisions made late, late into the night are always based on logic and reason. We bought a ball and played catch several times, strengthening our arms and talking about how great the story will look on the plaques below our Cooperstown busts. Well, too much dreaming and not enough catching leads to losing your ball in the bushes. Thus, my baseball career officially and unceremoniously ended.)
A quick note on stats that Freshman year, I had 8 RBIs in the one game and 9 total for the season – musta been hit by a pitch with the bases loaded or something.
Anyway, if you’re not familiar with the term Warning Track Power, it describes a hitter who almost has enough to hit home runs regularly, but is consistently a little short. Instead of going over the wall, the ball makes it within ten feet of the wall. Leading to a lot of impressive outs, but outs nonetheless.
So, when you see Warning Track Power on a post, just know I’m trying to go deep, but probably will end up with a long, impressive out. Well, hopefully impressive. Just like my baseball career, the more I try, the less likely It works. But this time, there’s no coach taking me out of the game for being terrible. I can just keep going and going. Hmmm, I clearly didn’t learn the lesson that trying to go deep is not
But don’t write off Warning Track Power as something a little too heavy for you. It might just be hilarious watching my tiny brain wrassle with itself over things it can’t understand. You might find even find a new level of humor and personal validation, likely saying “wow, this guy thinks that’s deep?”
It may just be a beautiful trainwreck. So, here’s to beautiful trainwrecks.
