Got 3...
#1 - Luckiest shot. Park League round ball, I was probably around 12 yrs old. Del Valle Park, Lakewood CA. I was tall for my age group, so naturally played center. Our team was mid-placed, nothing special. We were playing (of course) the elite #1 squad in the league. Game was down to less than 30 seconds. Ball was passed to me in the lane. I dribbled out of the crowd, and came up around the top of the key. With about 10 seconds left, I saw my couch jumping up and down and screaming something. At the exact top of the key, I did a Kareem-Abdul 'sky-hook' prayer - nothing but net to tie the game. We won in overtime. Pizza never tasted better!
#2 - Greatest no-luck-involved play. Park league hard ball. I spent all of my baseball years playing catcher. As a catcher, you dream of the 'perfect' throw down to nail a base runner. Playing against a team with a notorious and smart-ass-mouthed rabbit. He walked. Sat down at first base smirking and taunting me. This a-hole was burning a hole in my soul with his fake take off, then smirk. He was saying "we both know I own second base, bitch! I'll let you know when I'll have it.." Pitch came, fastball, perfect strike. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him take off in slow motion. In the smoothest move I ever had as a catcher, the mask came off, found the ball with my right hand and let it fly... it dropped in for a perfect strike to the shortstop's glove right as that bitch's foot was coming in for the slide. Still in slow motion, I saw the 2nd base ump call him out with a huge and ferocious gesture. Crowd went crazy, real time resumed. I watch him pick himself up, dust off his uniform, and he glared me down as he made his way back to the dugout. I flipped him off inside my catcher's mitt just for good measure.
#3 - Greatest revenge play. Park league hard ball again. I was about 11 yrs old. Skip backward about a month or two, and a good friend of mine got into a fight in the schoolyard. It was just a shoving match at the time I walked up. I got in-between the two of them and tried to talk them out of throwing down, let's be cool and settle it. Up walks one Donny Ross, definitely the biggest dude in school. All I heard was "let 'em fight if they want to" right before the lights went out. He had spun me around and sucker punched me right in the nose. Woke up in the nurses office, blood everywhere. Back to the ball game a few months later... I was at-bat against the team that Donny Ross played on, and he was their shortstop. Pitch came, I swung through and connected. I dropped the bat and started towards first. The ball was hit sharply, but right at Donny. Easy, routine play, he didn't even have to step left or right. He bent down to field the ball as I motored towards first. Suddenly, the ball found the tiniest little speck of dust to hit, and turned from a routine grounder into a horrific 'bad hop' ball. It leaped off of the field, bypassed Donny's outstretched glove, and punched him smack dab on the nose. He went down, and hard, as the ball doinked off his face and into left field. I crossed second base, and remember jumping over his limp torso on my way to third. "Whoa dude... that looks painful!" Lots of blood, paramedics, broken nose.
Hey Donny!
Bitchin' thread... I need to grow up. Or get therapy. Or both.
- Keith