Nice piece by Daniel Barbarisi in the Wall Street Journal about a bat boy and the pine-tar incident.
Unrelated, I found this photograph at Royals Then, Now & Forever. See the way Nettles is sliding his right foot? He did that before every pitch. When I played as a kid, up through high school, I copied that move too. If I stood on an infield today, without thinking, I’m sure I’d do it again.
Spaulding... that's rich, but I still don't like Brett.
Yankee-Killer.
And a beautiful shot of the best version of remodelled Yankee Stadium: 387' to the power alley in LF, 430' to deep LF, 417' to CF. Now *that's* a Death Valley.
Nettles is likely smoothing out shoe marks in the infield dirt. I learned to do the same thing over at 1B from Mattingly and Hernandez. Still do it now as an MSBL geezer.
Someone, may have been one of those two, once called it "doing your gardening." The throat you save from a funky hop may be your own.
4) Yup. Exactly. I learned it from him, get rid of those pebbles. Smooth it out.