I Hit a Few Homers

 

This is more of a personal post so I won't forget them all, but I would also love it if someday my grandson stumbled upon this site and said to himself, "hey, my Fresepop was a pretty good ballplayer".

I hit no homers when I was a young man. I was a late bloomer, and by the time I matured, I was just about done with baseball. In my very last hardball game,  I almost hit two home runs. But we were playing on an open field at Dudley Grange in Camden, NJ in a Garden State League game against a team from East Camden. Earl Adams was the pitcher, I remember. He was a good one who I had faced in high school ball when he pitched for Woodrow Wilson High School.

I came up in the middle innings with the bases loaded and launched a ball over the leftfielder's head that almost certainty would have been a grand slam had the field been fenced. Instead I settled for a triple and three RBI.

Next at-bat, I launched yet another bomb to left, but by now they were wise to me and had moved WAY back. Again the ball would have certainly have been a home if there was a fence. Instead, my last hardball at-bat for 18 years became a long, loud out.

Starting in 1976, I began playing softball. We had a lot of fun, won a few championships, and I hit a LOT of homers. But when the pitcher is throwing underhanded and slow, it just ain't the same, believe me.

Anyway, I played softball until 1992, and then, at age 36 in 1993, I decided to go back and try my hand at hardball again, joining the West Deptford Athletics. The idea was that me and my boy would both be "learning" to hit together. Tony was just reaching that age where he understood the game, and I thought I could help him more if I was playing myself.

So off I went on a journey that would last some 25 years in the game.

It was a struggle at the start 

Manager Mike Malatesta, a really nice guy, was spotting me here and there in games, and getting back into the swing in hardball was no easy task. Took me a while. 

I hit .231 in that first season, and did not have a homer. But i wound up playing a lot of 1B and some OF as well.  I always had a good glove, and that helps get you on the field. 

In 1994, I was a bit more ready to really play. I got mt first-ever hardball homer off a lefty on the Reds. He threw me a fastball away, and I hit a lazy, deep fly to dead right field. As I rounded first, I saw the ball drop just beyond the red temporary fence just out of the reach of the right-fielder. It was a neat moment.

I got another one later that same year at a night game in Deptford, NJ. It came against a very good righthander on the Moorestown Indians, Tony DiSipio. He made me look bad on a pitch, and I stepped out and had a quick chat with myself to reset.

It worked. 

I crushed the next pitch into the night, a line drive that easily cleared the short centerfield fence at the Almonesson Complex. I had family there, my cousin Cathy and her boys, which made it even neater.

I finished that year at a much more respectable .385, and I was beginning to feel it.

The year 1995 would be my last with the Athletics, and it was a good one.  I hit an even .400, the only time I would reach that number in my career. I also cleared the fences three times, and a fourth time at the All-Star Game. 

One of my favorites came in Trenton against the Giants on a really short Babe Ruth field. 

I take a lot of pitches, and I was having one of my usual long at-bats. After taking a few pitches, I swung and missed at one.  

Well, the centerfielder, a rather talkative black dude, screams for everyone to hear, " Oh, so he CAN swing!" I stepped out and regrouped.

The next pitch was a fastball down, and I sent the baseball and a message to the centerfielder, crushing a line drive over his head and over the short pitch for a homer. But, did that feel good.

The next one came off a great pitcher in a game against the Cinnaminson White Sox in which we were getting crushed. Mike Behrend was a terrific righthander who really knew how to pitch. But we were playing at Union Field in West Deptford, which is a cozy 300 feet all around.

I got a fly ball up in the air to dead center and I got just enough of it to sneak it over the high fence for a dinger. I don't think Behrend was very happy, but hey, he had the last laugh, as they beat the crap out of us. 

With the great year I was having, I was sent to the All-Star Game in Cooperstown, NJ. It was quite a thrill to play the first game at Doubleday Field, but I got just one at-bat there, and I think I struck out. But I played a very good defensive first base, and hence got a start in the next game at Olde Milford Towne Field.

I had a late at-bat against a lefty reliever who was a but of a junk-baller. He threw me a breaking ball down and in, and I just dropped the bat head on it and watched it fly down the left field line. 

And fly. And fly. The ball wound up hitting a house down there, and if it wasn't a 400-foot homer, it had to be damned close. My buddy Frank Rose was there to see it, and he talks about it to this day. It was majestic.

The final homer came in a doubleheader at Pennsauken High School, a field I had played at in high school. I had to catch both games that day. No easy task!

Late in the first contest, I got a ball up in the air to right field and it sailed over the fence, barely. It was very reminiscent of my very first homer, but I felt better because a) I knew I hit this one on the screws and b) I hit it as a catcher, which was cool.

The next year, 1996, we started the legendary Washington Township Senators, a franchise that would last until 2021, a very impressive show v of longevity for a local men's baseball team.

My first of two homers that year came against a hard-throwing righthander on the Downbeach Tigers on a windy day in Ventnor. Oh, and the wind was blowing in. Hard. Off the bay.

It didn't matter. 

This guy threw me a belt-high, straight fastball and I swung as hard as I could and hit the ball as hard as I've ever hit a baseball.  Given that the wind was literally gusting in from left, I still wasn't sure I got enough of it until I saw the back of leftfielder Chuck Urban's jersey as he watched it sail waaaay over the fence for possibly my longest homer. It felt AWESOME.

The late Joe Pavlik greeted me at home plate with a bewildered look on his face and said "How did you do that??" I just shrugged. I didn't have an answer. One of my favorite moments on the ballfield.

My second and final homer of the year came in a ridiculous game in Ocean County, NJ against the Ocean Cardinals, a team that really should have stayed home. We beat them 43-0. With a couple of men on, I smoked a line drive that got over the centerfielder's head and rolled into the asphalt that led to the school far in the distance. By the time they retrieved that baseball, I could have circled the bases twice. But once was enough. Not sure how many homers we had that day, but it was a LOT.

We moved to a wood bat league in 1997, and that was pretty much it for my power game. Baseball is very different game with a wooden bat. Trust me on that one. 

I got my only wood bat homer in the year 2000 at Cherry Hill Babe Ruth Field, another short porch. I was getting a tad long in the tooth at this point, and at age 43, this would be my last season in 25+ ball. I would move up to the 35+ division in 2001.

The Cherry Hill pitcher threw me a fastball, and I got a good swing on it, sending it high into right-center.

My fondest memory of the hit comes from the late Pete Conlin. I heard Pete say "That could leave the yard" as I headed for first base. 

As usual, Pete was right. The ball became my first — and only — wooden bat home run, and last home run I would hit in men's baseball. I played for 17 more season and had many more hits, thrills and championships. But I never hit another home run.

So I managed a total of nine home runs in my baseball career. Every one of them was special. I'll take them with me in my heart wherever life takes me.