Driven From Hell, Like a Bat Out of Heaven

In one small shopping center off Moulton Parkway in Laguna Hills, a person can get previews of both heaven and hell.

Hell, as we all know, is prefigured by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Satan himself must have sat in on the birth of this bureaucratic demon, so complete are its curses, so insurmountable its power. The last time I went there--had to go there--was to register a new used truck I got, and I went prepared: I brought along all my forms already filled out, had an “appointment” and, for luck, talked two friends of mine who are priests into coming with me, to swing incense atenchers before my path and to mutter holy incantations in Latin.

One glimpse of this entourage was enough to elicit the standard response:

“Go to Window Four.”

Window Four, of course, had a line at least four miles long, made up of people who looked like--and, like me, indeed were--refugees from the regular world. We waited patiently. The priests swung the incense burners. To our right, people flunked written driving tests with regularity, gnashing their teeth. Some wailed. Others, who had no doubt studied nightly for three months ahead of time, passed the test, then trailed obediently to have their eyes tested, their thumbprints recorded and their pictures taken. Strobes flashed. Bewildered penitents limped from the building clutching feeble receipts they surely would lose before the cops pulled them over and cited them for driving with an expired license. All signs, rules and pamphlets were printed in every language on Earth, reinforcing the idea that hell is the only truly indiscriminating place any of us will ever get to visit.

But like any healthy individual, I chose not to dwell on the specifics of hell, but rather to enjoy the broader concept of heaven. I stepped into the parking lot, the priests looked at me suspiciously, and we made our way to one of the best-kept secrets in all of Orange County.

A short 200 feet from the DMV are Ron LeFebvre’s Schools of Baseball and Softball Inc. Lest the somewhat academic name fool you, rest assured that the schools feature pizza, beer, pool tables and video games and, most importantly, indoor batting cages.

There are a few primal pleasures that continue to be a comfort to humankind: campfires, food, wine, lust and hitting an 80-m.p.h. fastball on the sweet spot of a baseball bat. These things satisfy our most atavistic yearnings and are perhaps the most significant indicators of what it means to be human.

The primary difference between heaven and hell is that heaven has no lines. That is to say, I simply walked up to the window and traded a fiver for four tokens, each of which guaranteed that 20 fastballs would dart from the machine and cross my strike zone. I was given a 34-inch bat, a helmet that, unlike any helmet I wore in Little League, actually fit, and a hearty “good luck!” from the attendant. The priests did likewise, then loosened their collars, and we all took a few practice cuts.

Inside the cage, the hitter is presented with one of the most satisfying landscapes on the planet, namely, home plate, a batter’s box and a straight line of sight to the “pitcher” who, in this case, is a big machine with two softish tires whirring in opposite directions, from between the middle of which will shoot what is arguably the most beautiful man-made object in the history of our race, the baseball (though one also can make a case for the Stratocaster, which, no matter what anybody says about Orange County, was invented here).

At any rate, the object is to hit the ball, and in heaven, everybody is confident. You take a deep breath. Your heart accelerates. You take a practice swing or two, then another deep breath. You eye the pitcher with an air of challenge, decorum and nonchalance.

Then you insert the token, step into the batter’s box and, with a physical grace that has evolved from Ruth all the way forward in time to Will Clark (and is still evolving), you await the pitch. You are every hitter who has ever lived; you are the pinnacle of your species; you are carrying the responsibility of progress in your body.

Nobody said heaven would be easy. You look at the first pitch, because every coach you ever had told you to do that. Gee, you note, it’s pretty quick. You bunt at the second pitch, but the ball flicks off the bat and whizzes past your face so close that you realize you’ve missed a broken nose by about a half an inch, and who wants to bunt anyway?

Heaven is not for bunters, so you swing away. I missed the first two, fouled away the next three, dribbled three opposite-field grounders, popped up the next couple, missed a couple more, then turned around and looked at the priests. They looked at me with concern, then nodded at me in unison, apparently aware of something I was not. I dug in and awaited the next pitch.

Contrary to popular belief, pitching machines do not always throw the ball in the same place. The next pitch hissed from between the spinning tires, a dead-center fastball just a skosh up in the strike zone. I saw it coming, fat as full moon rising.

My swing began with a panicked signal from the brain, which translated into a shift of hips, a dip of arms and the start of a pivot beginning in my right big toe. Ball upon me, weight shifting slightly, arms leading the bat through the place the ball should be, and then the ringing “sok” of the sweet spot finding the ball, followed by a brief vision--it’s always too brief!--of the ball shooting skyward, diminishing rapidly into the nets beyond, no longer a baseball going out of sight but a glimpse of possibility, hope, heaven. The priests nodded and chuckled knowingly.

God, I thought: That felt good.