My most memorable at-bat took place half a lifetime ago. I had driven my youngest brother to Little League practice. His team was having an intersquad scrimmage, and the coach, short on players, asked me to fill in for a couple of innings until more team members showed up. An inning or so later, I came up to bat.
I was, comparatively, a Big Kid, three years older than anyone on the team, four years older than the skinny pitcher facing me. To anyone watching, it was a given that I would get a hit, possibly a home run. As though to confirm that, my brother, in center-field, back-pedaled confidently to the warning track as I stepped up to the plate.
I, on the other hand, was knee-knocking nervous. All my life, I had played mostly softball, stickball and Whiffle ball-prodigious amounts, granted, but nothing like hardball. My Little League career had embraced one season and only two at-bats; I had walked and whiffed, in each case without touching the ball. And here I was, six years later, squinting at a kid who just might humiliate me.
The count went to 1-2 before I managed a fly ball. I rounded first in time to see the ball hit high off the center-field wall and into my brother`s glove. His throw to second held me at first. I was forced out on a grounder by the next batter, some regular Little Leaguers showed up, and that was the end of my organized-baseball career.
Not many players can single off the outfield wall. Fewer still get a thrill by doing so. But for me, a reliably bad athlete for most of my life, that hit represented vindication, a brief, shining moment when I felt like a ballplayer.
The pitcher`s name was Roger Clemens.
No, it wasn`t. His name was Kendall Something, and for all I know he`s a broken man, still agonizing over the hanging curve he threw me. Kendall would be agonizing even more had he been around to see me last week, when I spent a few agonizingly hot days waving aluminum baseball bats in the approximate vicinity of pitched baseballs.
”This guy,” Kendall would think, ”got a hit off me?”
Truth be told, it was a pretty sad spectacle. I whacked slow pitches pretty well, and more or less held my own on medium-speed pitches. Fast pitches? Don`t ask.
I was checking out the area`s sports complexes, places that let the competitor in you run free for a few hours. They offer such diversions as go- carts, basketball, miniature golf, Hi-ball and a variety of other skill games-including, of course, batting cages. The best places have a variety of activities suitable for a wide range of age groups, simultaneously suitable for families, school groups, weekend warriors and the occasional hacker who wants to recapture some fleeting triumph of 17 years ago.
A story like this usually would run in early summer, but responsible newspapers do not encourage their readers to exert themselves in weather such as we`ve been having. So think of these places as recreational options best exercised during mild days and breezy nights, which are certain to return to the Chicago area, perhaps as early as October.
Actually, there`s no need to rush. Several sports complexes are year-round operations. With a little dedication and money, your batting eye (or throwing arm or shooting touch) can stay sharp all year long.
In fact, the year-round complexes are at their busiest when the weather is cold. Summer is a relatively slow time. This summer, owners and managers say, is particularly slow.
”It hasn`t been great,” says Jeanne Mausure, owner of Fun Time Square recreation center in Alsip. The 2-year-old outdoor facility is suffering through a very slow summer, due principally to the oppressive heat the Chicago area has experienced.
Over at Haunted Trails, a complex in Burbank, business was mixed on a recent, scorching afternoon. The video arcade and game room, both air-conditioned, were full of people. The batting cages and bumper cars, both outdoors, were empty. The outdoor miniature golf course had a couple of players.
”The heat has hurt,” says Tom Bonk, manager at Haunted Trails. ”Then again, we haven`t had many rained-out days.”
The torrid summer heat has cut deepest into daytime business, Bonk and Mausure agree. Nights have been steady enough, especially because baseball and softball teams like to use the batting cages for practice. But the daytime crowd, typically consisting of young kids, parents and occasional group outings, is way down this summer. That`s especially true for the indoor complexes, which (except for Funway) aren`t air-conditioned.
Which means, if you`re the hardy sort, that the best time to be a sport, if only for an hour or so, is in the late morning and early afternoon. You don`t need any special equipment; just money and an hour or so to kill.
The skill games are nothing new. Many are the same kind of games you see on carnival midways-basketball shooting, Skee Ball, Knock Down and Boom Ball
(a Skee Ball and Knock Down variant in which the balls are shot from a tube; you just aim and fire). There are a few basketball games available; one type is played individually, the player shooting as many baskets as possible within a certain time frame, competing against an ideal score; the second type is a two-player game in which players try to outscore each other within the time limit.
Video games in general tend toward sporting themes, but there are plenty of kill-or-be-killed games as well.
Batting cages don`t vary all that much. Few places still feature the
”Iron Mike” cages, which pitch the ball via a rotating mechanical arm;
most centers have pitching machines that employ two spinning wheels to more or less spit the ball toward the plate. Because the wheels spin at slightly different speeds, each pitch has a slightly different spin, too; you`ll get rising fastballs, curves, low pitches and, occasionally, an inside pitch. As long as you stay inside the batter`s box you should be safe, but accidents do happen. That`s why there are ”play at your own risk” disclaimers all over the batting cages; it`s also why wearing a batting helmet is a good idea. Unfortunately, some places don`t offer them.
The best batting cages-the ones I found at Playball, Twin Links, Fun Time Square and Jus Fun-are extra long. The longer the distance from plate to fence, the better sense you get of how well you`ve hit a given pitch. On the other hand, the machines at Grand Slam U.S.A. (locations in Palatine, Elgin and Glenwood) allow you to adjust the height of the pitches, a terrific feature that`s not available at the other facilities I visited. Quite a few places offer softball batting cages-but only for 12-inch softballs.
If you`re looking for variety, try your hand at Hi-ball. Hi-ball is sort of a cross between basketball and volleyball played on a trampoline. It works like this: The trampoline playing surface is divided into four small compartments by sturdy netting. Players try to bounce to the top of their compartment wall and toss a volleyball-size ball into an opponent`s goal. (The opponents are bouncing, too, trying to stop you.) The game can be played with two or four people. Some centers have discontinued Hi-ball, citing insurance problems; Sluggers and Playball still offer it.
One popular feature this summer is the bumper boat ride. Bumper boats are huge, inner-tube shaped devices that putter around a pool. The ride makes a nice five-minute cool-off-especially at Funway in Batavia, where you can steer your bumper boat into one of several fountain streams.
One place the heat seems not to have impaired is Sluggers World Class Sports Bar. Sluggers sits across the street from Wrigley Field, a magnet for area baseball fans, and consequently does good business-especially when the Cubs are in town-regardless of the weather.
”It could be 190 degrees, and they`d wanna hit a few balls,” says manager Harvey Berger. ”They don`t mind (the weather); it makes `em feel like they`re playing baseball.” The fact that many local sports figures drop by from time to time doesn`t hurt, either.
The busiest times at Sluggers, Berger says, are before and after Cubs home games, weekend nights, and Wednesday nights, when the bar serves beers for 25 cents. ”But you never know,” Berger says. ”One afternoon there was nobody in here, and suddenly a whole soccer team shows up-with their fans. And just as fast, they`re gone.
”This is a great place to work if you`re sports oriented,” Berger says. ”I love the Cubs; if the Cubs win, I listen to news reports all night long. In the morning I turn on WOR (the New York-area TV station that broadcasts Mets games) just to hear the New York announcers say that the Cubs won.”
