Fastball is Fast

This week, Kitchener is hosting the ISC World Fastball Tournament. Over 60 team will be competing for the ISC World Championship, ISC Legend Championship, and ISC U-21 Championship. I’ve only been to the tournament once before and since my friend Marc pitches for one of the local teams, we went to watch him play on Friday night. My dad and I will also be checking out a few games at the end of the week.

Those that know me know that I’m a baseball fanatic. I played little league as a kid, and frankly, I was terrible. I was never able to get over the fear of getting hit by the ball which drastically inhibited my ability to hit it while up to bat. I only lasted a couple seasons before I realized that “Major League Baseball Player” was off the career list. This never killed my love for the game of baseball, however.

I play slo-pitch on a weekly basis and I still can’t fathom how hard it is to keep up with a ball thrown so hard and so fast. They say hitting a baseball is one of the hardest things to do in any sport; it has something to do with hitting one round object (the ball) with another (the bat). Now, I don’t have a huge amount of experience in all sports to say this is totally true, but after watching this game and seeing many other big league contests in person, I can see where this idea comes from. I remember once trying the fastest pitching machine at a batting cage and I was barely able to make contact. These were balls that were just pumped down the middle every time and I could hardly manage any foul tips, so being able to make contact in different locations in the strike zone all within a fraction of a second is something I’ll never quite wrap my head around.

Regardless of how poorly I can hit anything above a slow, underhanded pitch, I’m quite happy with my current slo-pitch skills, even if it pales in comparison with what these guys can do.