So, this whole “Roger Bacon Baseball” thing, right? It wasn’t something I stumbled upon in some high-brow sports magazine or anything. Nope, it all got going in a much stranger fashion. I was up in my grandad’s attic, trying to clear out some space – you know the scene, dust everywhere, cobwebs that looked like they’d been there since the dawn of time – and I came across this old, battered wooden chest.
Inside, tucked away under some old hats that smelled faintly of mothballs and a pile of letters I probably shouldn’t have nosed through, was this slim, leather-covered notebook. It looked seriously old. The writing inside was all spidery and faded, and the first page just had “R. Bacon’s Principles for the True Striking of the Base-Ball.” My first thought was, okay, some old fella named Bacon must’ve really been into his baseball. But then I saw these really odd drawings, bits about “angles of trajectory” for a batted ball, and notes on the “ideal temperament” for a pitcher. It was… different.
This wasn’t your usual stack of coaching tips. Far from it. A lot of it seemed pretty wild, to be honest. There was talk about observing the “ætherial flow” to better judge a fly ball, or using “natural philosophy” to understand how a spitball (yeah, it mentioned spitballs!) moved. Sounded more like something out of a wizard’s handbook than a sports manual. For a good while, I just figured it was some eccentric old chap’s personal scribblings.
But then, one Saturday, I found myself at a loose end. My usual weekend game had been called off due to rain. That notebook was just sitting on my desk. So, I thought, why not? Let’s give some of this “Roger Bacon Baseball” a whirl. I started with what the book called “The Aligned Stance.” The notebook had these incredibly precise instructions for where to put your feet, measured down to the quarter inch, supposedly based on “the earth’s subtle energies.” My mates nearly fell over laughing when I rocked up to the park the next week with a spirit level and a compass, trying to get my stance just so.
- My first go: Swung and missed by a mile. Felt like a right idiot. The compass wasn’t doing much for my hand-eye coordination, that was clear.
- Second go (after what the book called “attunement”): I actually hit the ball! A dribbler to third, but hey, it was contact!
- The next thing I tried was the “Fixed Gaze Method.” This meant staring intently at a spot on the pitcher’s cap for a “full cycle of seven heartbeats” before he even started his wind-up. Mostly, it just made my eyes water and I completely misjudged the pitch.
The “science,” if you could even call it that, was pretty much nonsense from today’s point of view. Roger Bacon, the famous one from centuries ago, was into experiments and optics, no doubt. This notebook felt like someone, way later, had borrowed his name and gone off on a very peculiar tangent, mixing up old-timey ideas with early baseball.
So, did I suddenly become a star player? Not a chance. I probably looked utterly daft out there, messing about with weird stances and muttering about “æther.” My batting average certainly didn’t see any miracles from Mr. Bacon, whoever he really was in this context. Most of his “techniques” were totally impractical, and a few were just plain daft.
But you know what? It was actually a bit of a laugh. In a strange, trying-it-out sort of way. It made me look at the game from a completely different angle. Not about the usual stats or the mechanics everyone talks about, but just about the sheer act of trying something new. About how folks in the old days might have tried to figure things out with the knowledge they had. It was like a funny little historical experiment, but with a bat and ball. I didn’t unlock any ancient secrets to hitting home runs. But I did get a decent story out of it, and I kind of appreciate my normal, straightforward, non-Baconian approach to batting a bit more now.
Sometimes, just diving into something odd, even if it doesn’t lead to any big breakthrough, has its own kind of satisfaction. That old notebook? It’s stored away safely. But every now and then, if I’m having a bad streak at the plate, I think about that compass. Maybe I should try finding those “subtle energies” again… just for a chuckle.
