By: Chuck Swirsky

About a month ago, my son and I were taking a little 4-stadiums-in-3-days baseball tour.  We stopped off in Lansing to see the Lansing Lugnuts play a noon game.  Right before the game, one of their workers asked me if I wanted to come on the field and do a promotion in-between innings.  I said sure.

After the 3rd inning, I was led onto the field.  They took me over to the 1st base foul line.  They took another fan over to the 3rd base line.  The object was to see who could hit more whiffle balls into the crowd.  I took some advice from one of the workers and tried hitting them with one hand.  After fouling the first 3 pitches straight down, I put my second hand on the bat and hit the next 7 pitches into the crowd.  The other guy hit a total of 3.  My prize was that I was invited back to the stadium to take actual batting practice on the field.

So, this week, I headed back to Lansing for my B.P.  There were about a half dozen total contest winners.  Lansing's manager, Clayton McCullough, pitched to us.  He said that if anyone had brought their glove, they could go field the balls.  I jumped right at that opportunity because I've always loved fielding as much as hitting.  I ran out to 3rd base, which was really weird for me because I'm left handed (for those not in the know, lefties can't play 3rd base.  They can field, but the pivot on the throw to 1st takes way too much time).  The other hitters grounded several balls my way.  I fielded them all cleanly, and even made a sweet diving catch to my right.

Then came my turn to hit.  I forgot to bring my own bat so I had to settle for one of their Louisville Sluggers (covered in pine tar).  As the coach prepared to throw the first pitch, I squared to bunt (Whenever a big leaguer takes B.P. he ALWAYS bunts the first pitch.  I also do this when I play ball with my son).  The coach stopped and said "Oh, a bunter, huh?"  I responded "Just the first pitch to get my timing down."  He threw his pitch and I bunted it right down the 3rd base line.  The coach yelled "Jesus!" and then called for one of his players to come over (I forget which one).  He told me to do that again.  He pitched, and I laid down another beautiful bunt down the line.  The coach looked at his player and said "See!  That's how it's done!"  Apparantly, he had been working with the player all season on how to bunt and along comes an old fart like me who can do it better.  :)

I saw about 25 pitches total.  Only swung and missed 2 of them.  I hit a few foul balls.  I only really got a hold of 2 or 3 of them.  I think my furthest one went about 275 feet.  Afterwards, the coach came over and shook my hand and said that I did pretty well (not good enough for a contract though).

At 4:30, the Lugnuts came out to take B.P.  We were invited to stay and watch.  Normally the gates don't open until 6 so we had the run of the place.  I went down the left field line to try to get a ball.  Only one of them made it into the stands, but I got to keep it.  When the Nuts were done batting, I spent about an hour walking around the park.  I found a grand total of 6 baseballs that the ushers had missed.  I also caught one during the game right behind the visitors bullpen.

All-in-all, it was a fantastic day.  I'll probably never get to do it again, but it was something I'll never forget.  A fun day of hitting.  I came home with 7 baseballs, and the best part was, I never even had to pay for a ticket to the game!