Shaping Up
Comets Story 5
Don actually was in shape, in good shape, in fact. He’d run dozens of marathons and innumerable shorter races. He worked out at a nearby sports club, and just running our centuries-old Normandy property was a workout of its own. He chopped and hauled wood nearly every day; he trimmed the 70+ trees in our orchard and wrestled the flint and other stones that seemed to appear from nowhere in our yard.
There was, however, no denying that he was not in baseball shape. All those throwing and hitting muscles had lain dormant; he needed to wake them up, get them working again if he was going to keep up with the Comets. And that had become very important to him. He wanted to be a full, contributing member of the team, not some sort of “charity” case they put up with.
“Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to shag balls for me,” he announced as he headed to our 16th century barn. There he found an old mattress, lugged it outside and propped it against the barn’s wall.
Backing up a good distance, he launched a ball toward the mattress. It missed, dare we say, by a country mile. Another throw. Same result.
I was running around, hunting for the baseballs he’d thrown when I heard him growl, “I can’t even hit the broad side of a barn.” I burst out laughing.
“What do you think is so funny?” he snarled at me.
I couldn’t say anything I was laughing so hard.
He stopped short and looked at the barn. “Oh, I get it,” he said, and then started laughing, too. “The only thing I can hit is the broad side of a barn.”
Maybe that relaxed him, or maybe he’d found his rhythm again, because his next throw hit the center of the mattress with a solid “thwump.” And so did all the ones after that. One ball after another, he threw and threw again, gradually increasing his distance from the barn.
“Can we please stop?” I pleaded after what seemed like an eternity. “I’m exhausted. I’ve been running non-stop since you started throwing.”
“Okay,” Don said reluctantly, “but we’ll have to do some more tomorrow. I think there’s a game this weekend, and I want to be ready.”
— Petie
