An offseason story

Great story TripleDad

Stuff like that happens to me all the time. But sometimes its fun to play jokes on people and get a good laugh. This past summer we were having a camp at the school. There always seems to be one kid in every camp that just grates on your last nerve. They know everything and they will not listen. You try to talk to them but again they already know everything. So while we are taking a break in the dugout in the 98 degree heat I say to the kid. "Terry go out to second base lift it up and flip the ac switch for the dugouts". Now this kid is 15 and he knows everything but he looks at me with this funny look on his face. "What Coach"? I then get a stern look on my face and say "Hey , Go out there and lift up second base and flip the darn ac on for the dugouts. I dont know about you but Im hot." The kid now looks around at everyone to see if they are laughing. One of the upper classman players working the camp says "Hey Terry when Coach May says do something we do it. Just lift up the bag and you will see the switch on the post the bag sits in." Well the kid jogs out to second base. He lifts up the base and starts looking around. "Coach I dont see it anywhere". "Terry come on son. It aint getting any cooler out here. Quit playing around and flip the black switch on the base post". Well now he is laying in the dirt digging dirt out from around the post. I mean he is working hard on that thing. Finally he says "Coach I swear someone must have moved it or broke it off because I cant find it." Now he is covered in dirt and sweating bigtime from the heat. We all break out laughing and the kid just sits there. His face was red and all the guys go over to him and pat him on the back and he finally starts to laugh as well. Heck before the end of the week I really started to like that kid.

quote:

Originally posted by Coach May:
Stuff like that happens to me all the time. But sometimes its fun to play jokes on people and get a good laugh.

Great story Tripledad, that sounds like us.

Coach that reminds me of a couple stories during my Freshman year in College.

My Coach was a notorious prankster, so whenever he got the chance he'd try and pull one over on us when we least expected it.

One day in the fall during practice the Pitcher's were throwing their sides and a fellow Frosh was having trouble throwing his breaking ball, so our Coach walks up to him and says a few words to him and then he gets back on the bump and the same thing the curve ball was flat. So our Coach looks up at him, and the guy is looking a little nervous so Coach says to him, "Go and get that box of Curve Balls over there and use them, maybe that'll help" Without hesitation the kid jumps off the mound and runs to the dugout and frantically starts looking for a box marked 'Curve Balls' after about 5 minutes the Coach walks over to him and starts laughing hysterically and explains what he said to the kid. He got so red with embarrassment, it was the funniest thing I'd seen on a diamond.

The next story has to deal with me. Coming into the program in January I wanted to make sure I made a great impression to the team and the Coaching staff, so I went out of my way to prove that I belonged there. One day maybe 3 weeks into my time there we had a recruit come who watched us practice then the Coach was going to see him hit some, so he walks over to me and says "Wales go up into the supply room and get my a right handed fungo..." Of course me being the eager to please rook I take off like a flash to the supply room and start looking for a Fungo, there was a wood one and an aluminum one, (now I never really knew what exactly a fungo was until I got to College, so keep that in mind) so there I am standing there looking both going, I wonder which is the right and left handed one. Naturally I grabbed the wood one for some reason, so I run down there and give it to the Coach. He looks at me and goes "Wales I said the Right handed fungo, go back and get it for me." So I'm thinking to myself, just great I picked the wrong one, how stupid do I look now. So I turn and run back to the supply room to get the aluminum one. I start rummaging through it again to get it, when one of our Senior Pitchers calmly walks up to me and says "You know there's no actual Right and Left handed fungo's right kid?" I just started laughing.

A couple of good practical jokes from the dental lab business...

The lab was located in a 12 story office bldg and the bldg was full of dentists. Invariably, while working with gold, an apprentice would drop a piece in a sink or on the floor where we couldn't reach it. My Dad would holler out, "who's got the gold magnet?". One of the seasoned employees would then answer, "I lent it to Dr. Rabin", at which point the goose chase was on. Every dentist in the bldg new the drill...he had the magnet earlier, but lent it to Dr. So and So. We've had kids be gone hours trying to track down the gold magnet.

The other good one, was that when an apprentice looked like he was actually going to stick around and make a decent technician, we'd tell him that on his one year anniversary, we'd make him a company gold ring. Well, my Grandpa had made a gold company ring many years before and kept it in his drawer to show prospective wearers what it might look like. When the kids anniverary came up, and he was bugging us to make his gold ring, we'd wait until near the end of the day and succomb to his wishes. Of course we told him that we needed to make a mold of his hand in order to make the ring the right size. "Here kid, put your hand in this 5 gallon pail of wet plaster so we can make the mold". Of course plaster gets a might warm while it is getting hard, and just as it gets hard..."huh, look at the clock, time to punch out and go home", and everyone would leave...except the kid with the 5 gallon bucket of rock hard plaster hanging from his arm.

Great stories and I love a good practical joke myself.

One day in practice we had a kid that was similar to Coach May's kid - knew everything and told me he knew it. Well he was an outfielder and I had them over at the cage taking BP while I had pitchers and infielders on the field doing something.

I got the infielders and pitchers together and said let's get "so and so" and everyone was all for it. I told them when I call the OF back to the field I would be acting like I was throwing a fit because we were doing terrible on our pickoffs.

I got the OF over and put my starters out in the field but the OF had no clue what was going on. I was yelling out "I can't believe this is a varsity team that cannot execute an proper pickoff to second" and stuff like that. I yelled out we are going to pick "so and so" at second but if he has a chance to score then we would be running poles until the cows came home. While I am screaming this my IF has their gloves over their faces trying to keep from laughing.

Well he was fired up and we ran the pitcher fake throw to centerfield but hold the ball. He dove back into second and saw our shortstop and second baseman diving towards the middle. My CF had no idea what was going so he was running around trying to find a ball that was never thrown. "So and so" stood up and took off for third but it seemed like he was running place because it took him forever to get going.

My pitcher almost couldn't throw the ball to third he was laughing so hard. He took it pretty well and he said if we didn't do that in a game he would be mad.

We have also sent guys after left handed screw drivers before.

Sorry Tripledad, but this reminded me of a joke I read yesterday. I think many have probably seen or heard some version of it before, but...


"The Blonde and the Jumper

A blonde and a redhead met in a bar after work for a drink, and were watching the 6 O'clock news. A man was shown threatening to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge.
The blonde bet the redhead $50 that he wouldn't jump, and the redhead replied, “I'll take that bet!”

Anyway, sure enough, he jumped, so the blonde gave the redhead the $50 she owed. The redhead said, “I can't take this, you're my friend. I have to admit, I saw this on the 5 o'clock news, so I can't take your money.”

The blonde replied, “Well, so did I, but I never thought he'd jump again!” "

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Seriously, with Albert, you never know whether it's a replay or not! I can remember watching them show replays after he hit one in a game, and we thought he had hit another

Coach May, that's pretty good. Playing in a JV game maybe one time, it was starting to get dark. I was catching. As a batter was getting into the box, the umpire told me that I should probably have the coach turn the lights on. The batter looked around and just had that look on his face. Was great considering we have no lights of course!

OUCH !

We told a kid once he needed a "metric system bat" because his was 33 inches and 30 ounces and we were playing on the road tomorrow so he'd need to have a metric one.
He believed us but he did have a good comeback, "Usually by the time I get in the game the umps don't care anymore because we are way ahead or way behind."

A couple of years when my son was in seventh grade, he was one of two student managers for the HS team. At one of the first practices the coach sent one manager to the shed to find the bucket of curve balls and sent my son to ask the assistant coaches for the keys to the batters box. Each coach would say he thought one of the others had the keys last. He said he knew there weren't any keys but he still made the rounds.