One time I got to face a big league pitcher in a batting cage. I was trying out for a regional team.

This is one of the summers that I was maybe playing college ball,

something like that. And whatever the case, you know, college ball, you saw some guys who could throw hard

and you start to feel pretty confident in yourself. Well, I went and I did this try out and the

dude who jumped in the cage to pitch to me used to play on this same regional

team but now he'd gone on to play in the big leagues and he was I think pitching for the

Houston Astros at this point and so I step in the cage and I greet the guy

because everybody around town knows who that guy is and the coach is like you

know whispered something to him and I know okay he's not going to give me everything he's got and he's throwing at me and there's a guy with a radar gun behind and I'm kind of fouling stuff off a little bit but it's it's tough and he's throwing 75 you know but he's a big league

pitcher so everything's got a little action on it. It's tough to read and and I was terrified and

intimidated because of who I was facing but eventually I settled in I started making pretty

consistent contact there. Well then he bumps it up to about 85 and let me tell you

I felt like I had seen some pretty legitimate pitching in college even in high school and everybody and everybody in high school is like yeah I throw like probably like 80 or something every college pitcher., yeah, like, I don't know,

low, mid 80, something like that.

Do you?

Really though?

Really?

Because what most people say is like 80 is like 67. 80 is cooking, 85 is blazing, and then because I

managed to just get a little bit of bat on a couple of those pitches in the

80s and just flail away and kind of

foul it off weekly they're like yeah let's take it all the way up like break him and then

he starts throwing me stuff in the 90s with with movement on it so in other words

...