Practice Makes Perfect

 

            We beat the snow and the cold and the winding roads of Fredrick Law Olmsted’s Riverside to reach Stella’s, our indoor hitting facility of choice.  It was worth the trek.

            Clare has been going to Stella’s since she was nine.  We followed all the posted do’s and don’ts for about a year until I relented and let her hit at 70 mph.  A year later, it was 75 and 80 before she was in eighth grade.  The girl has yet to meet a fastball she didn’t like.

            Up until junior year high school, Clare was a good, basic line-drive hitter, with a swing made to find the gaps.  It was a January five years ago when that changed.  I was watching my daughter hit at 75 and 80 when, all of a sudden, she started booming shots.  Stella’s is an odd place that seems to stretch forever and has a roof supported by two three-foot in diameter metal columns.  So, when I say “booming” I mean the balls went into the nether regions and/or they bounced off the columns.  In that case, the “boom” was more of a very loud “boing.”

            Clare hit five homers the spring that followed, to go with her .425 average and then hit ten more homers her senior year.  Hence the interest from schools like Elmhurst.  Coach Brown did well by her West Suburban Gold Conference recruit.  Clare hit six homers as a freshman, which broke the school single-season record, and seven as a sophomore.  That gave her the career mark as well.

            Then came last year.  The team slumped, Clare slumped.  Among the reasons were an unexpected change in coaches, a 12-player roster and the death of a favorite first-cousin; we had to leave Florida to attend the funeral.  All of that led to a season that included two homers from the Babe and no return to the postseason.

            I told Clare in the fall she should make a tee-shirt that says, I’m owning up to last year so I can own this one.  Off of yesterday, she’s taking that message to heart.  From the pictures and video we studied, Clare seemed to have developed a bad habit, not in her swing but her stance; the front foot was tippy-toe in the extreme.  So, the foot went down yesterday, and Stella’s went “boing” for a good half-hour.  But we’re still not done.

              The habit leads to the question:  Did it cause the slump, or did the slump cause it?  In other words, did all the stuff happening on and off the field affect performance?  I think so, which then leads us back, yet again, to Yogi Berra and the mental part of sports.  If my daughter’s head is right, her swing is right.  That’s why I made the tee-shirt suggestion.

            The best part of watching Clare hit is when she draws a crowd, as she did yesterday; girls her size aren’t supposed to hit balls coming in that fast so hard and so far.  The more people of the male persuasion who watch the better; I swear the girl lives to confound others.  Yesterday, men stared, boys watched and my daughter was happy.

            And somewhere in New Jersey Mr. Berra did a good day’s work without ever knowing it.