Though I'm in America, talking with Americans, I'm not sure if I'm American. I may be Australian, or at the very least, I may have been born in another country
It felt like baseball was definitely my game and I'm definitely amongst baseball fans, but I don't feel 100% American. Whatever that means
It felt like I never got my full shot at the major league
I had to stop pitching because of a injury
Now, I've been out of the league for what feels like a very long time. I mean at least 10 years
However long it is, it feels like I'm beyond the age where I could consider trying again. Beyond the age where anybody, including myself, would think I have another shot
But I'm wrong
The 10 years or so letting my injury heal, has had the opposite effect and made me better somehow
Or maybe, as my opinion is later in the dream, I was just blooded to early. I tried to go too hard, too quickly when I was young ...
And that was the cause of my injury
Whatever it was, I felt immense sadness and lamented on what happened and what could had been. Even though I gently accepted it
I am playing baseball with some kids that feel like 'troubled teens', or they are special in some way
I'm not sure that I'm actually coaching them, but I'm giving them some advice and helping
I make a joke that I should try pitching to them, thinking 'why not give it a try?'. See if my arm holds up
I joke with them, telling them not to worry, saying I'll give it a little bit of heat, but I won't go to hard
I see bits of my throwing balls with them but it seems pretty uneventful
Other than, it makes me decide to see how much of my former ability I still have, or, that I can get back
I start with some type of medicine ball
The ball is a big, soft sponge, about the size of a rockmelon/cantaloupe
It is so spongy, that it can be compressed in your hands down to about the size of a grapefruit
So it has the relative density, size and weight of a baseball, but only for a few seconds while you are molding the ball and compressing it in your hands
The second you stop compressing and molding it in your hands, it starts expanding again
If you wait too long inbetween compressing/condensing the ball and pitching it, it is almost impossible to throw
It becomes like using trying to pitch a big ball of soft, spongy mush
The idea is to teach you how to centre and hold the ball while it's in your hands and concentrate on hold you hold it and release it so that the ball is still centred
One little bit of centre and you are thrown a misshapen sponge off to the side
Do it right and the ball flies straight and expands flat like a pancake, so it keeps flying straight
Meaning that unless you throw the pitch perfectly straight, it won't just miss your target by a little, it will miss BY ALLOT
It is also used by those, such as myself in the dream, who have injuries that could be aggregated by throwing a hard, weighted ball
This ball absorbs and redistributes allot of the balls pitched weight during the pitch so that lightens the amount of flex and bend in the fingers, hand, arm/elbow, etc, during the pitch
It has less 'back-slap' weight against the bending arm of the pitcher by absorbing and slowing-down a good deal of the pitch
It is frustrating for me in the dream, because the ball is going everywhere while I'm trying to pitch it, but that's the idea
Even when you pitch it right, it's frustrating because if comes out so much competitively slower than it is pitched
Then I am using a similar rehabilitation method, where you pitch a balled up wet soaking wet t-shirt
I think this is just the budget/cheap equivalent of the sponge therapy ball
When you get the therapy ball right, it hits the glove or wall with a loud thudding splat sound, which is oddly satisfying, because it means you got the pitch right
I'm talking to the young male catching my pitches after one of my balls splats hard. He and the others listening all comment that it had some power behind it and I tell them that it was actually only wrong 45-50% power
Then I explain that in baseball a difference of even 1 mile per hour faster in a fast ball, becomes exponentially harder, the faster you go
I explain that this is why a lot of people blow out their arms, especially young pitchers who push themselves to hard, to quickly. Referring to myself in the stories generalisation
Then I move up to pitching tennis balls
Then finally, I start pitching baseballs again
When I do, something funny happens. I discover a new way of pitching, to protect me arm from injury during the pitch. There is nothing new about the pitch, it's just what you do with the arm while it's delivered
At first it's hard to pull off, with me only getting one in every few pitches
But everyone, including me, thinks that my arm and pitch is a real contender, but we don't have any equipment to measure the speed ...
And I've been out of touch for a while, so maybe it only seems fast to me
Even when someone arranges for me to pitch to a catcher still connected to the major leagues, on their own behest and belief in my pitch, I have my doubts
Even they, confident in me enough to arrange someone to come check out my pitch, are talking about how I'm worth 'developing' and 'giving another shot' to the catcher and those he brought with him, when I meet with them to pitch
Neither of us honestly have any idea of just how fast my 'fast ball' actually is. We know it's fast, but not how fast
They are measuring the speed of my pitches using radar speed-teaching and the catcher is being very positive and supportive about the fast balls I'm throwing, that I think were registering in the 90's of miles per hour
Though I know the speed is genuinely good and that the catcher is not patronising me by being positive, I also know that they probably aren't impressed enough to take me seriously, with all things considered, even with good pitches
I tell him the catcher and those that are with him, that I'm not hitting my best pitch yet, that I have faster one
The pitcher jokes with me when I tell them, asking "what, a wiffle ball?"
They are asking for other types of pitch when I hit the pitch I'm looking for perfectly
The catcher backs his glove into his body catching the ball and almost falls over backwards, but catches himself before he does
"Woah" is all he says
One of those that are with him calls out "124" and everyone seems to be in disbelief
They are asking if it could be wrong, but the man operating the radar assures them that the machine is working correctly
I'm nowhere near as excited as they are. I'm more happy that I am vindicated in what I said. "See, I told you I had a faster pitch"
"A slider" the catcher says to me, seemingly in disbelief
I explain the pitch to him because I'm not sure it's actually a slider. It tell him that the ball spins to come inwards and down, not because I'm spinning it in my hand, but naturally because of the way it leaves my hand when I pitch it
Then I explain that when I pitch the ball, I don't let my arm go completely slack or bend to 'sling' the ball like most pitchers do (like I used to do)
Instead, I try to time the release of the pitch so that I catch the initial bend and flex of my arm, contracting my muscles, so the arm stays straight until half-way through the pitch
I give it a stiff arm until I can lean my body into the end of the pitch and THEN relax my arm, to sling the ball
I did this initially to protect my arm from being reinjured while pitching ...
But quickly realised you could actually delivery more power pitching this way, compared to a conventional pitch
I threw another pitch and mis-timed the flex in my arm, so that I did a normal pitch
"See, I missed that one" I said
Then I threw another of the good pitches
"124.6 miles per hour" the man with the speed-gun called out. "Damn!"
The dream ended with them asking me if I could teach others to pitch like that
I woke up from this dream and the first thing I did was check details of the dream on my phone
Before the dream I honestly had no idea how fast baseball pitchers could throw, except for vague memories of what I've seen in movies
My guess, before looking online, was that the world record pitch would be somewhere around 115 miles per hour
My guess was also, that most major league baseball pitchers could pitch in the range of 100-110 miles per hour
So I thought 124 would only be mildly impressive
In the dream, I didn't have any idea exactly how fast that was
Because it didn't seem like a big deal to me
I also had no (true) idea what a wiffle ball was. Or a slider
I thought a wiffle ball was a type of pitch. Although having checked online, I do vaguely recall the ball called a wiffle ball. But I thought it was also a pitch. Especially in the context it was used in my dream
I wasn't sure what a slider was before the dream
I may have had some vague memory of what it was, or may have just been lucky in guessing that it was ...
But when I looked it up, it was exactly what they are talking about in my dream. But it was something I would never have said I knew, before I looked it up after the dream
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