Tommy - can you pitch lefty too?

john - thanks for posting that note and those pictures.

the pictures are great. one captures tommy maney's athleticism; the other, where he's smiling, his nature.

that smile is good to see. it's warranted, given all the travails, operations and comebacks that he's endured with his shoulder.

tommy is the last person to talk about his achievements, but i can say he did very well on the hill: in the game's last inning, and his first inning pitching in years,
he used a low sidearm delivery and got not three but four outs in a row.

memory's weak here but i believe nothing the other team hit left the infield: a pop out and ground out to the left side of the field, and, then, for good measure,
a would-be ground out to me at second, which resulted in a wild, knoblauchian throw to first. moments later, tommy got a fourth batter, on another infield ground out.

i told tommy that i threw wide on purpose, so he'd get one more guy to pitch to. he nodded and said with a smile, "yeah, sure." fact is, it was an eventful
pitch: the batter swung and broke his bat at the handle. afterwards tommy was typically funny. holding the broken bat in his hands he said, "hey,
a little super-glue and this thing will be good as new."

mike girard asked how it happened that tommy got out there.

the answer is that it was accident and good fortune, mike, as much of extended or fall ball is. that's what i like about our post-post-season.
it's not only a really relaxed time, but it's the time to try things out that during the season pitchers and hitters might be reluctant to do. which
applies to me, too.

a quick, but related aside: i value extended and fall ball for the chance to experiment. two seasons ago i developed what's called a sub-luxated shoulder.
in that, the ball of the shoulder joint slips out of its socket, it doesn't go far, maybe an 1/8 of an inch, but it's enough to press on the nerves, making the shoulder
go numb. in my case it happens after about 15-20 throws and wildness ensues. (lookout batters.) the numbness usually disappears with about a half hour's rest.

but i'm vain enough that i want to keep pitching if i can help my team, or if, on those days when my team simply needs someone to throw the ball
at our catcher. (apparently sub-luxated shoulder problems are not new to pitching: most recently, the st. louis cardinals' former cy young winner, chris carpenter,
had to retire at 37, not because of his age but because his subluxation was so severe; his teammate, jaime garcia had the same problem, and last winter,
had surgery, which is experimental now. the surgery involves removing the top-most rib bone, to give the shoulder nerves more space. garcia is back pitching
this year, so it may have worked. i've had one surgery on my right shoulder for a torn labrum; that's enough for me.)

so last night, our side's manager, dennis lane, pitched the first two innings, did a nice job, and then said if i wanted to go, i could pitch as long as i wanted.
heavens! it didn't matter if don ball's team scored 80 runs (they didn't). what mattered was that i got a chance to experiment with different releases,
to see if i could still throw for more than one inning. i went three. as i did so, i discussed my delivery with our catcher mike cleary, who was very
helpful, and tom, who has a lot of good advice.

that's because tom, too, has a subluxated shoulder, only his is much worse than mine. he's also had assorted tears and breaks that have led to more than one
surgery. but tom has kept coming back, refusing to quit, teaching himself, first, to throw left handed (amazing that anybody at any age could do that; and
all the more so in someone over 50), and now going with a low sidearm throw that seems not to hurt his repaired right shoulder. and he's done it with more
than one smile and joke. his hitting, fortunately, wasn't affected, and he's continued to rake pitchers. i know about that, too.)

so last night in the dugout, about the fourth inning, tom and i were discussing shoulders when he said, a little hesitantly, "you know, i've been thinking about the idea of getting back on the hill, see how i do, you know, throwing sidearm." i could see him weighing his options in his eyes.

my immediate response was, "yes, let's do it!" then i felt foolish, realizing that "let's" was the wrong word. i wouldn't be the one with the oft-repaired
shoulder trying it. the upcoming inning would be my third and last for my experimentation. so i said, "you want to take the hill after me?"

tom didn't reply right away. i could see him thinking about it, and thinking perhaps what a mistake could mean. but he'd already made three or four good
throws from third. they had some zip on them. slowly, he began to nod his head. "OK," he finally said. "i'll try it."

tom's throws were slightly below sidearm, not quite submarine, but not far from it either. he made his release after stepping slightly toward third base and
then coming around on the batter. the advantage to that is that he could use his body in a kind of whipping way, to add force to his throws, and the motion
helped obscure the ball. nearly all of his throws were around the plate, they came at different speeds, and each had a rising and falling motion to it, making
it harder to hit.

afterwards, tom said he felt ok. i hope his shoulder is that way today. no doubt tom will go easy and smart into future outings.

but last night, close to sunset, in this irrelevant, sandlot game in the far corner of albany county, tom showed himself and us that he could do it again. it was,
when you consider his history, as close to a magnificent thing as we may see for a while.

-mike

i've edited the last graph above and am adding this one: it struck me after i posted this that tom might have wanted to pursue his own experiment
in private. to which i say, sorry, tom, i realized that too late. but the upside is that other players in the league may find some value in your story and mine.
if so, good. it also struck me that tom's shoulder or instincts may have told him today that rest, maybe a long one, and not continued pitching is needed.
if so, it'd be smart to do that. but that doesn't change what happened thursday night. in this league, remarkable things are constantly happening
right in front of us. when we see them, we can consider ourselves fortunate.
-m.



-- Edited by mhart on Saturday 15th of August 2015 12:44:27 PM