Another good question from Tom Brennan here in the off season...
Did any of you play either High School or College baseball.
If you did, tell us about it...
Getting a jump on this, below are Tom Brennan's and (especially) his brother Steve's experiences:
Steve Brennan:
I played summer league at the age of 15. I had been ill the year before and was unable to play.
I was a skinny, lanky lefty that threw gas. I had 2 separate games where I struck-out 17-18 batters in seven inning games. I also had two 15 K - 5 inning games to go with that. I wound up winning the league MVP and 2 tournament MVP's.
If I remember correctly - I had 165-170 K's in 75-80 innings. That included stops with 16 years old, 17-18 year olds and finished the summer with the 18 year-old travel team.
I was team captain of my high school team and beat future major leaguer Heathcliff Slocum in a game in tournament that we played in FLA. I had 2 hits, 2 ribbies, 3 sb's and 15 K's. ( I played against a few others that went to the MLB show and smoked them all )
I then hurt my leg shortly after.
Not too much later I blew-out my arm and like so many … I went to work. I have been in Aerospace in one facet or another for 30 + years.
I just wish that I could play one more game.
Tom Brennan:
I'll start back a bit, slightly prior to High School - over the summer of 8th grade, I used to go up to my local Catholic grade school where it was just a mere 160 down the right field line to the school building, which was about 30-35 feet high.
Kind of a Forbes Field for scrawny lefty hitting kids. Like me.
One of my younger brothers, Bob, used to pitch to me.
I'd make believe I was Willie Stargell, who hit many a shot over the right field roof in Forbes Field; I'd do the Willie Stargell wind mill with the bat prior to the pitch, then parked many a shot up on that school roof. Only old baseballs, so it was no big loss, and a lot of fun.
I personally lacked confidence. Nonetheless, I tried out for my High School team as a sophomore. I threw a scoreless inning and walked one, not allowing a hit.
As a 5'8", 130 pound string bean slugger, I also did hit the longest ball of anyone during the tryouts that day, and roped a few others. To no avail, however.
Coach had 19 holdovers and just 6 openings, and of the 6 openings, 5 guys were picked from his basketball team, which he also coached.
The 6th guy was not me, but my classmate John Britton, who ended up getting the only hit in one game against a towering lefty named John Candelaria in a 7 inning shutout that season, a game in which the Candy Man fanned 18.
After the tryout, though, I was annoyed and discouraged about not making the squad, considering my good showing, and did not bother to try out as a junior or senior. I figured nothing would change.
Meanwhile, the summer when I was 16, one day off of one of my younger brothers, Bob, a local CYO team from Bellerose came walking up to that Floral Park field, which was located right next to Belmont Park. It was quite a long walk.
One of the team's guys from that team arrived at the diamond before the others and began to pitch to me. I lined a few ropes, and then hit a Field of Dreams shot to right center about 330-350 feet, clearing the deep fence by a good distance.
Of course, it took a bounce up off the asphalt and broke a school window.
Of course, a Floral Park cop was there.
Of course, he wanted my name. I do not make this up.
By then, the CYO manager, Mr. Lorne, had caught up to where we were on the field and was yelling to me, "Make up a name, make up a name! Tell him you're Luigi!"
After that, for the next few minutes, he persistently asked me to join his team. But I had a summer job and so I didn't. I was an idiot. So that was the end of my dreams.
I did have an arm, able to throw the length of a football field, was fast and was excellent at tracking down flies.
But when I went to Fordham, I was working a lot of hours to pay for school, and did not try out for the college team.
You got to be in it to win it, and I wasn't. I was dumb. And...
I was no Steve Brennan when it came to moxie.
Steve touched on his story above. Let me add my take to it.
His is an amazing story of a truly talented pitcher who sadly extremely overused his pitching gift and blew his arm out. Not dissimilar to John Candelaria, Steve once showed me a press clipping of a HS game where he threw a 7 inning one hitter and fanned 17.
Somehow, I only got to see my brother Steve pitch once. Just once. Still puzzled as to how that could have happened, even though I am 14 years his senior.
But...
That one game was classic. You should have been there. I guarantee you, you missed out.
It was against a Canadian All Star team, up in Montreal, teams of kids around 17-18 years of age, about 35 years ago.
Steve, just 15 at the time, came in to relieve and went three uniquely incredibly strong innings, as I recall.
Yep, they were no ordinary 3 innings. In fact, it was the best show in town....in Canada, for that matter.
First guy up lined a single off him. The nerve. You don't want to mess with Brother Nature.
Steve was fuming. The Mad Hungarian, Al Hrabosky, was cool, calm, and collected compared to Steve. I exaggerate not a whit in that regard.
Next batter up, very first pitch, Stevie Boy nails him in the ribs. THUD!
Steve comes down off the mound, not to apologize, but instead belligerently taunting him and the whole team. They were gonna pay. The ump and his manager are yelling to him to go back and pitch.
And continue to pitch he did, but not quietly. The tornado named Steve had arrived.
As I recollect, he fanned NINE straight, and after every wicked fastball and curve ball he came down off the mound taunting the hitters. Every pitch. Lots of "GET BACK ON THE MOUND!" from the ump and manager. Somehow, he wasn't tossed.
It was surprising it didn't turn into an international incident.
"MONSIEUR, C'EST INCROIABLE!!!"
Oh, and he lined a hit, too, maybe two, I can't recall.
I've never been back to Montreal.
Why not, you ask? Why bother, I reply.
Nothing could ever top that.
And sadly, you missed it.
Stuff like that is why we love baseball.
