June 7th - Westfield Wheelmen at Whately Pioneers

The main reason I originally had reservations about playing vintage base ball is that I was concerned about not having a "real" glove to protect myself from a line drive hit back at me while pitching. Since in vintage base ball the pitcher is even closer than in modern baseball there is even less reaction time. Over the years I been hit a number of times by line drives. It is a fact of life if you are a pitcher, especially if you throw as many innings as I do. Every now and again someone hits a shot right at you. It is for this reason that I no longer play in leagues that allow aluminum bats. The reaction time for a pitcher is not long enough given the speed that a ball comes of those new bats.

In the season and a half of vintage ball I've played so far I've only had one ball hit really hard directly back at me while pitching. That was in the Vintage World Series playoffs last season. A one hop line drive was hit right at me and I went to field it with both hands but it got by them and I actually caught it between my legs. I thought it was pretty funny to stop a ball that way and remember smiling as I threw the batter out at first.

Today my number came up for real. In the second inning an absolute rocket was hit directly back at me and was headed for my face. I got my glove hand up and blocked it with the heal of my hand. For those not familiar with vintage base ball gloves they are essentially leather gardening gloves. Good protection against thorns but no protection against a baseball traveling at 90+ mph. I found the ball and tried to throw the batter out but instead threw it wildly into foul territory and out of play.

With play stopped everyone came running to assess the damage to my hand. Buck, the team captain, almost immediately suggest perhaps I should take third base rather than keep pitching. My first thought was "That's really not much safer than the mound" and fortunately Spider mentioned this so that I didn't have to myself. My hand was definitely throbbing but nothing seemed broken so I figured I'd rather keep pitching. After taking a minute or two to get used to the pain I took a few warm up pitches and finished the inning. After the inning Buck suggest I go to centerfield which I took him up on it. I later moved to second base which seem like the best place for me. I wasn't confident I would be able to catch a fly ball with my throbbing hand.

The Wheelmen jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first 3 innings but we fought back to make it 6-3 in the middle innings. They eventually added 2 runs in the 7th and the final scored was 8-3.