I don't know how old you are, but at my age I'd get smoked. Have you seen the stuff these little bastards can throw nowadays? "Hand-eye coordination?" WTF is that?

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I'm not playing the 13 year olds. I'm in the 10 - 11 league. Those older kids are too mean.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I could probably field pretty good still, but hitting I'm sure I'd be abysmal. When little leaguers get old enough, they're pretty damn good.


~20 years ago I coached little league, 11-12 year olds. We had a few 12 year olds who could flat out pitch and hit and most of them had no fear. I'm a lefty so I always threw BP the day before playing a left handed pitcher. I don't recall how fast I could throw but fast enough to get it by most of the kids, each kid got 10 or 15 pitches. One kid was too good and could hit me hard. He'd egged me on telling me to pitch harder and harder. I was giving it all I had and finally lost control and beaned him right in the ribs. Poor kid dropped like a rock, cried pretty damn good too, worse was him mom was at practice! He got up, brushed himself off, I tried to walk him back to his mom who was now standing outside the dugout. He took his place back in the batters box and said, "I have 4 pitches left", and he wanted those last four at bats. I looked at his mom, she was smiling and just shrugged as if to say, "OK, go ahead". I dialed it back quite a bit and he smoked his last four pitches like nothing ever happened. Wish I remembered his name, I wouldn't be surprised if he was in the bigs today.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Well, I sucked when I was a kid and I haven't played anything in 30 years so I imagine that I would be even worse now.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Funny. I'm 50 and was a good HS basketball player back in my day. A second ACL injury in my late 20s ended my rec league career and I haven't touched a ball since. Well, as a recent empty-nester I was looking for something to do the other day and I bought a ball and some shoes and went to the local school to shoot some hoops for the first time in over 20 years. There were some kids there, probably 13-15 ish, and they asked me to join their game. I dominated whenever I wanted too. It was really fun helping them with their games while we were playing. Bigger, stronger, and a lot more experienced (funny how it all came immediately back) makes a huge difference. It was fun. I'm going back.

Beat me to it.

On top of not being any good in the first place I'm 48, and despite working out religiously, I've gotten kind of fat and I'm starting to really notice shit deteriorating. Last couple of years going hiking with the middle school outdoors club I find myself having to push myself a bit to keep up.

I am just thinking about golf. The last couple of years I have only golfed once per year, the company beer fest "golf" tournament.

Prior to that I hadn't played golf in about 10 years. Back when I played on a regular basis I could hit my drives 200-230 yards, depending on how well I hit it. Now? My max drive is 180.

I would assume that my limited baseball skills that haven't been used in 30 years would be severely deteriorated.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I was pretty decent until around 14-15. 15 years later I was at a Mariners game I went to the speed trap and could throw 74, accurately, with no warm up (yeah, arm hurt a little the next day...). Then the real pitchers came out to warm up. The sound of that ball hitting the catchers mitt up close is like a shotgun.

I'm joining a beer league this summer, so, I'll keep you posted to see if I still "got it".

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Long Chile was a silly place.

I played my best golf out of college. I was too weak and tried to swing too hard in my youth and high school. I was team captain and we played against Webb Simpson in my group a couple times in Raleigh for matches. It was unreal back then the difference between a good golfer and someone who was going pro someday.

But out of college I started doing very mild gym lifting and about 2 years ago was carrying my drives about 305. My 5 iron was about 210. Anything inside 150 yards was going to be a dart toss.

Then I got married and had kids and that went to shit forever. Stone cold off the couch I can still go to the range and hit about 50 balls and then go chip/putt for 1/2 hour and go out and break 80 from the middle tees.

Basically in high school I had shit for instruction in golf. Guy I used a few times for lessons didn't know what he was looking at. In college and out of college I started doing video edits of my swing just like you guys do the bike fits. I bought a webcam with a good enough frame rate. I'd do it fresh and when tired after a big bucket of balls. Come to find out I always from youth would swing with the Arnold Palmer chicken wing right elbow that you close at impact.

That's fine and dandy if you can do it 100% of the time. But it caused bad consistency problems especially late in rounds. Kind of like shoot -2 on the front and +6 on the back 9.

I forced myself out of that by pretty much tying bands around my two elbows and solved it. I lost about 10 yards overall distance, but the consistency difference was just astounding.

Also, doing so somehow helped the angle of attack on the irons and was getting some wicked nice stick to anything shorter than a 6 iron.

Other things I did as an adult during that "golden age" of playing was really really get to brass tacks on how far I hit each club. For about 2 months once I kept a spreadsheet of club, distance and elevation (guess, just uphill or downhill). I was routinely long on wedge to 8 and routinely short on the rest. I wrote the numbers down in my yardage book and that improved things a LOT.

I also got wise and did a self-fit and custom cut my own shafts down about 1/2" each. I had played off-the-rack clubs my entire childhood.

Now, with kids, I play maybe once per year. Bike racing has replaced it as a hobby as I don't have time for both exercise and a hobby be separate.

See, I'm comfortably at 70. With poor control. Those little 10 and 11 year old buggers would be bailing out on every pitch. From 46' I'd be bringing the heat.

I didn't play last year but still play softball regularly. If anything I field better now than 10 years ago. And I can still outrun most 5th graders. And what catcher is going to stand in when I come down the 3rd base line?

It would just suck to strike out against them if they could throw a curve. Those things mess me up.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I go to the cage with my son. He is playing Majors now so the pitch speeds are around 50-60mph. He works the cage that is throwing 60 then up to the max cage at 70mph. Once he warms up a bit, he can hit pretty well at 70mph.

I start in the 35 mph cage. I can hit most every ball. I go to the 50mph and miss about 3 out of 10. I go in the 70mph, and I cannot even see the ball.

Yeah, but he isn't afraid the cage will stick one in his earhole.

And we are sticking with the 10 and 11 year olds. I don't want to get embarrassed.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Not sure if you answered this, but how old are you? If you can throw 70, I'm going to guess you are under 40.

I don't think I can throw over 35 without risk of blowing my 46 year old shoulder up.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

51 - but like I mentioned, I may only have 2 games in me throwing heat. Then I'll have to move to the field. And I think catching works as long as they still let me block the plate.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

That was the at which I did my last IM-distance triathlon. I finished in the low 10:40s but just wasn't able find a higher gear. And recovery times were getting a little longer. I didn't want to be the guy who didn't know when it was time to stand on the sidelines and cheer the younger ones on, so I hung up the racing flats and I don't regret it.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I think I would suck. I played Little League in a small town and wasn't one of the better players even in that tiny pool of talentless crackers.

I pitched a little bit. After which my teammates started calling me "Lightning". Not because I had a good fastball, but because I never hit the same place twice.

I sucked back then and would likely still suck today.

I coach youth hockey and there's some 10-11 yr-olds on the team who are better skaters than I am. Similar to the story above where someone inadvertently drilled a kid in the ribs during BP, I was working with our goalie once in practice trying to get him to use his pads and blocker more to stop shots where he kept trying to use the stick for everything. I'd tell him where I was shooting so he could read the shot better, and one time when I told him I was going for the pads I wristed one a little too high and got him right in the nuts. Thankfully he had a cup on but he had to sit out for a few minutes to recover.

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"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

"Well, I sucked when I was a kid and I haven't played anything in 30 years so I imagine that I would be even worse now."

There are some things that I do today that I do fairly athletically, but baseball isn't one of them.


I got into a batting cage maybe a decade ago. The first pitch came, I flinched and swung erratically, and I'm pretty sure I closed my eyes. I turned to my brother (who actually played baseball in HS) and said, "wow, that was pretty embarrassing."

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

That's pretty impressive. I messed up shoulder 6 years ago playing frisbee golf and, well, its like Nolan Ryan's last pitch. That's all folks!


My best bench press was 300lbs. My best fast ball was only 50 mph. I was probably using mostly my arm, but I've also had an incredibly inflexible chest/shoulder, so I had a hitch in my pitch that basically forced me to throw like a catcher. I just got nothing from the windup.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I'm sure there is some bizarre mental pressure involved in playing against kids. Sure, you can hit their pitching speed. But you've got a lot more time to think with their tiny arms lobbing warmth at you. Every parent in the stand (who will probably be younger then you...) Will be expecting you to knock everything not only out of the park, but half way across the parking lot. Don't psych yourself out now!

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Long Chile was a silly place.