It Really Isn’t That Hard Once You Get Into the Swing of It

Baseball players want more money. Can you believe it? Isn’t that ridiculous? How tough is it to play this kids’ game, anyway?

One way to find out how tough it is, is to try it. Most of us played Little League or high school ball, but it’s been a while since we last faced some serious pitching. Many women have never had the experience.

All you have to do is find yourself a batting cage. Just look for one of those freeway-close family fun centers, the kind that features miniature golf as a front for a video-game sweatshop, where children shovel quarters into the game machines as if they were stoking the boilers of a Mississippi steamboat.

The batting cage is outside, a huge mesh tent. A bank of automatic pitching machines spits out baseballs at individual batting stalls. You hand the kid at the counter your driver’s license and he hands you a bat and a helmet.

You pick a stall. The speed of each pitching machine is marked outside the stall. A good major league fastball travels at 85 to 95 m.p.h. A major league batting practice lob goes about 60 m.p.h.

I pick a 60-m.p.h. cage. Hey, it’s been a few years. Gotta limber up before you face a Ryan or a Gooden.

Step in, dig in. Twenty-five pitches for a buck. The light goes on and the machine starts spitting.

Sixty m.p.h., my ear. Somebody better adjust this fool machine. The balls are hissing across the plate. Batters talk about looking for a pitch they can drive. I start looking for a pitch I can see.

Maybe I misread the sign. Maybe this pitching machine gets 60 miles per gallon .

Quickly I come to terms with some of the feelings of a major league ballplayer.

Chagrin, for instance. There’s no catcher, and when you swing and miss, the ball explodes into the rubber backstop like a bazooka shot. This is the sound of failure.

A major league team will often go through an entire batting practice session without whiffing at a single 60-m.p.h. pitch. Of course, they always have a nice hitter’s background. And custom bats, batting gloves, pine tar. . . .

I whiff again, and check my follow-through posture. Head jerked up and away from the ball, arms and body twisted awkwardly. How is it Reggie Jax can look majestic missing the ball, and I feel like I’m at the senior prom in a tux and a pair of swim fins?

Settle down, Slugger. See the ball. Head down. Bat back. Stop grinding your teeth.

Next feeling: Pain. I’m finally making contact, if you can call it that. Mostly off the skinny part of the bat. Each “hit” sends jarring vibrations up the arms and through the upper body. The balls skitter away, weak squibbs and comebackers. Am I holding the bat by the wrong end? Is that the sound of the kids inside the arcade, or is the machine laughing at me?

Maybe I should step back about 10 inches. Or 10 years.

Next feeling: Temptation. I realize I’m swinging for the fences. I want home runs. I didn’t come here to punch opposite-field singles or to advance baserunners. I’m going for the jack, Jack. The tater, the four-ply swat.

Sure, this is going to hurt my batting average, but somebody’s got to carry this ballclub, flex a little muscle, put the hammer down.

Then: Sweetness and light. I’m not going to lay a lot of false modesty on you. I kissed a few goodby. Once I warmed up, I took the machine downtown two or three times.

You barely feel the ball. It pops off the bat and disappears in a beautiful arc over the bank of wheezing machines and into the far net. Or is that the center-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium?

I suppose the feeling is similar to hitting a golf ball just right with a driver, although I wouldn’t know. I only played golf seriously for five or six years.

I lash out a few singles and doubles, for variety. I sense I’m beginning to earn the machine’s grudging respect. The machine starts taking more time between pitches, trying to work the corners on me.

I’m getting decent wood on the ball, although the wood is aluminum. You have to use your imagination. To achieve realism, to simulate the big league experience, you have to add in some of the elements that baseball hitters routinely deal with.

Such as 50,000 beered-up, sneering fans, a dugout full of teammates who wonder why you’re still batting cleanup, a pitcher who’s ears are turning red because you took too long to dig into the box, a kid down in Triple-A playing your position and batting .382, changeups and scroogies and Uncle Charlie (the curveball). . . .

Finally I step out of the cage, sweating like a pig but feeling pretty good. Next time I’ll try the 80-m.p.h./m.p.g. machine. What’s another 20 m.p.h./m.p.g.? It’ll take some work, but the swing will come back.

I remember Reggie saying you earn your salary during the hard times, the slumps. When you’re strokin’, you’d play the game for free. Shoot, you’d pay them to let you play.

“That’ll be two bucks,” says the kid behind the counter.

I walk out into the night, looking for a car I can drive.