So, someone asked about my whole “Mason Hamlin baseball” adventure. Man, that was a time. It sounds kinda fancy, maybe even a bit nuts, and yeah, it probably was a bit of both. It wasn’t some official league or anything, just my own weird attempt to, I dunno, get good at something I was spectacularly bad at.
The ridiculous beginning of it all
It started a few years back. I decided, way too late in life, that I wanted to at least not look like a complete fool playing catch with my son or at the company picnic. Problem was, I had zero coordination. Swinging a bat? Looked like I was fighting bees. Throwing? The ball had a mind of its own, usually aiming for a window or someone’s shin.
Around the same time, we’d inherited this old Mason Hamlin upright piano from my wife’s grandma. Beautiful thing, really. A classic. But none of us really played it much beyond a few hesitant C-major chords. It just sat in the living room, a silent testament to quality and precision. And I guess, looking at that piano, and then looking at my flailing attempts on the baseball diamond – or, well, the local park – a truly terrible idea began to form in my head.
My ‘brilliant’ theory: Piano discipline for baseball disaster
I got this notion, see? If pianists could have such incredible timing and precision with their fingers, moving them independently and with such grace, couldn’t some of that apply to baseball? I mean, it’s all about timing and controlled movement, right? So, “Mason Hamlin baseball” became my private, slightly unhinged training philosophy. The piano represented this peak of disciplined art, and I was gonna transfer that to my clumsy baseball efforts.
Here’s what my genius plan involved:
- Metronome Madness: I actually dragged a metronome out to the yard. Tried to time my swing to it. Tick-tock-SWING. Tick-tock-WHIFF. My kid just stared.
- Overthinking Every. Single. Thing.: Instead of just, y’know, hitting the ball, I was thinking about my stance like it was a complex chord voicing. My wind-up for a throw? That was a delicate arpeggio. It was exhausting.
- The “Graceful” Failure: I imagined myself moving with the supposed elegance of a concert pianist. In reality, I probably looked more like a malfunctioning animatronic. More stiff, more awkward. Definitely not graceful.
The inevitable outcome: Not exactly a home run
So, did I become a baseball prodigy thanks to my Mason Hamlin inspired methods? Not a chance. Not even close. If anything, I got worse for a while. I was so in my head, thinking about beats and posture and the “art” of it all, that I forgot the basic idea of just watching the ball.
My son, bless his heart, tried to be patient. “Dad, just swing!” he’d say. But I was too busy trying to channel my inner virtuoso. The other dads at the park? They probably thought I was having some kind of mid-life crisis. And maybe I was. It was frustrating, you know? You see these things, these high-quality instruments or skilled people, and you think there’s a secret code to unlock. But sometimes, you’re just trying to play chop-sticks on a Steinway, metaphorically speaking, when you should just be learning the basics.
So, what did I learn from this Mason Hamlin baseball circus?
Well, for one, I learned that a metronome is really, really annoying when you’re trying to hit a moving object thrown by an impatient ten-year-old. I also learned that overthinking is the quickest way to suck the joy out of anything, especially a game.
The Mason Hamlin still sits in the living room. It’s still beautiful. And my baseball skills? They’re still pretty terrible, to be honest. But I did eventually loosen up. I stopped trying to be a “baseball artist” and just focused on having fun with my kid. Sometimes, the grand theories and complicated approaches just get in the way. Sometimes, you just gotta grab the bat and swing, even if you look like a fool. And that’s okay. It’s definitely more fun than trying to play baseball like it’s a piano recital.
