Archive for The Home Runs I’ve Conceded

Last week, the author began a five-part series recounting notable home runs he’s conceded during his life as a nearly decent baseball pitcher at various levels.

Previous Installments: One / Two / Three.

Date: April, 1998
Level: High School
Place: Nash Field at Milton Academy in Milton, MA (Link)

One advantage of having relocated my dumb body to Paris, France, this past fall is that it’s allowed me to become acquainted with a comestible known as mille-feuille (proncounced meal-FIE, roughly). While there are probably variations on the theme of same, mille-feuille is generally speaking a dessert composed of multiple, alternating layers of a leaf-thin puff pastry and then custard-type cream which, when consumed all together by an adult man, gives him a desire in his heart to impregnate the whole world at once.

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Each day this week, the author is recounting notable home runs he’s conceded during his life as a nearly decent baseball pitcher at various levels.

Previous Installments: One / Two

Date: March, 1998
Level: High School (Preseason)
Place: Lake Bonny Park in Lakeland, FL (Link)

I am both (a) almost certainly plagiarizing the work of another, more talented author, but also at least (b) appealing to capital-T Truth, when I note at the outset of this brief post that, during the career of a young ballplayer, there are moments when he is compelled, against his will probably, to acknowledge that he’s unlikely ever to become an older ballplayer — or, at least not the sort of older ballplayer who’s compensated for his virtues afield. “This is not for you,” the facts of reality conspire to announce gravely. “Time to re-evaluate your options, probably.”

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Each day this week, the author is recounting notable home runs he’s conceded during his life as a nearly decent baseball pitcher at various levels. Read the first installment here.

Date: June, 1993
Level: Prep League (13-year-old Babe Ruth)
Place: Rollins Park in Concord, NH (Link)

Frequently it’s been the case in my adult life that people have mistaken me for longtime reliever and Dominican Republic native Octavio Dotel. “Excuse me, but are you Octavio Dotel?” people will often ask me, for example, on the streets of this or that American city. Or “Mr. Dotel,” they’ll say, catching up to me as I finish my afternoon jog, “could you please sign this baseball I happened to be carrying for some reason that I don’t even know?”

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Each day this week, the author is recounting notable home runs he’s conceded during his life as a nearly decent baseball pitcher at various levels.

Date: May, 1990
Level: Little League
Place: Sanel Field in Concord, NH (Link)

Like a liar, is how I’ll begin this series of brief anecdotes — owing, I mean, to how this particular one (i.e. this anecdote) doesn’t concern an actual, but only a would-be, home run. Sue me, is what anyone offended by this is invited to do.

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