Too Fast

This is an odd baseball story, and indicative of how times have changed, I guess.

The kid throws what is equivalent to an 80 mph fastball (field adjusted), which is deemed too fast for the Little League team he plays on?

You're kidding me!  Really talented kids do that all the time.  Ever watched a Little League World Series?

I played Little League ball when I was 12 years-old, and faced kids who threw harder than that every week.  I couldn't hit them, either, but I'd go up to the plate and wave at the pitches and do the best I could.  I struck out a lot.

One kid in my cohort threw so hard he scared me.  He was a tall, extremely fluid flame thrower.  I hated even stepping to the plate against the guy.  He was the first top-flight talent I met in the game, and we later played on the same high school team, where he became our ace and threw well into the 90-plus range, becoming a two-time consensus All-State pitcher here in Oregon.

I didn't like hitting against him in inter-squad games either, the only guy like that I can remember being frightened of when I stepped in to hit.

He turned down a very sizable bonus contract (for the time) out of high school and accepted a full-ride to the University of Oregon, where he promptly blew out his arm the next year and never recovered his stuff.

It would be interesting to follow the kid featured in the above story, see how it pans out for him.  You can only hope the adults don't mess his head up too much.


TS