Sometimes, when one is amazed by an action of another, he doesn’t realize that he, also, can amaze.
I think this is building up to a story. Let me tell you.
When I was a RADAR and computer instructor in the Air Force, I once had in my class four men who were in the Portuguese Air Force. They were pretty good guys and I liked them. By the way, I think this little story happened somewhere around 1961.
The squadron area was sort of shaped like a large rectangle. Actually, it was the exact shape of a large rectangle. Anyway, on the short ends were the orderly room and a recreation building. On the two long sides (I said “two” just in case you didn’t know how many long sides were in a rectangle), were rows of barracks. And in the middle of all that mess, was a fairly large recreational area. You know, a basketball court and a recreation area plenty large enough to throw a baseball around. By the way, the First Sergeant was a bit confused about the way the basketball court should be used, he thought it was a really neat place to exercise the students at 6:00 AM. And , yes, that was AM. Note that when I said “exercise” I also said “students.” Thank God I was an instructor. I spent a year as a student and had already had about as much exercise as I could handle.
I just re-read what I have written and the buildup to the story is probably longer than the story. Well, that’s life,
Anyway, here goes:
The four Portuguese guys were standing in the recreation area such that they sort of formed the four corners of a square. Actually, they exactly formed the four corners of a square, and they were standing, maybe, three feet or so from each other. They had a basketball and they were bouncing it around to each other using only their toes. They did it for quite a few minutes without stopping. The ball never touched the ground and I was amazed. You must remember here that soccer wasn’t much of anything in this country in 1961. (As far as I’m concerned, it still isn’t much of anything.)
Well, shortly after the toe exhibition, three guys came out with some gloves, a bat, and a baseball. They tossed the ball and bat to me and said, “Hit us a few.” So I did what I had been doing since I was about six, I hit a few to them. You know, a grounder to right field, a fly to center, a line drive to left. That kind of simple baseball stuff.
Well, after a few hits, I looked at the Portuguese guys and they were almost dumbfounded. One said, “How do you do that? How do you make the ball go where you want it to go?”
I learned something that day. I was amazed that they were doing something they had been doing since they were six. And they were amazed that I was doing something I had been doing since I was six.
Listen to the audio version of Baseball Soccer by H.D. Ingles.
