Keyboard Quarterbacks

First in an occasional series

By Mark La Monica

How many times have you seen a politician or celebrity in a jersey or jacket of the home team six-hop the ceremonial first pitch to the plate from 10 feet in front of the mound?

How many times have you said, "Jesus! You don't deserve to be there. Spend your time raising my taxes. Get someone who can at least throw from 60 feet, 6 inches?"

Throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game is one of my sports dreams. Preferably at Yankee Stadium. Preferably before a playoff game. But I'm not greedy. I'll take what I can get. A Wednesday afternoon game at the Stadium is acceptable. PNC Park in Pittsburgh for a Pirates-Nationals game? Sure. Tigers at Royals at Kaufman Stadium? Gladly.

Long ago my dream of becoming a professional baseball player died, due mainly to lack of that type of talent. And I hate all things politics and I'm not quite famous enough yet, so all I've got is the dream.

An opportunity presented itself Wednesday morning. The New York State Lottery sponsored a contest to throw out the first pitch of the Subway Series next Friday night at Shea Stadium.

You mean to tell me that all I have to do is wake up before 10:30 a.m., show up at Hofstra's baseball field with a non-winning lottery ticket or scratch-off card, drop it into a big box, throw some pitches for fun, then wait and see?

Two entries would be drawn at random at 12:45 p.m. Those two contestants would then compete against two previous winners from the city and have a pitch-off to see who earns the right to throw out the first pitch.

Immediately, I thought of Opening Day and the conversation I had with Lawyer friend Scurvy. We discussed the proper approach to throwing out the first pitch. First, you have to wear a glove. Second, you must demand to throw off the mound. Third, sanitary socks are required dress.

From there, you choose your own adventure. Go from the stretch, perhaps? Maybe a Rod Beck impersonation complete with the swinging arm as you look in for the non-existant signs? Full-windup? Steve Carlton hands-over-the-head windup? These are important decisions.

Then there's the matter of what pitch to throw. Straight cheese? A two-seamer? Circle change? Give the universal glove signal for a curveball then snap off a nasty deuce? So much thoughts goes into the first pitch when it's your only pitch.

When I got home from work on Tuesday night, I made myself a simple to-do list for Wednesday morning. It read:

1) Buy a lottery ticket
2) Pray it's not a winner

Wednesday morning arrived. I went to my local lottery outlet and bought a High Rollers scratch-off ticket. Then I thought, "What if these don't count? What if they only mean the big lottery drawings on Wednesdays and Saturdays?"

So I bought one of those, too. What the heck? It's only a dollar, and besides, this is a business expense, so it's tax deductible. I picked the jersey numbers of my all-time favorite Yankees: 19 (Righetti), 21 (O'Neill), 23 (Mattingly), 31 (Winfield), 42 (Rivera) and 46 (Pettitte).

At the very least, if the scratch-off ticket is acceptable, I've got a 1 in Lord-knows-how-many-million chances of hitting the quit-my-job-in-less-than-a-second jackpot.

Lottery tickets in hand, I took off for Hofstra. It was a fairly small crowd early, but I was prepared. I had my glove and spikes in the trunk, just in case.  Of course, I never want to be "that guy," but for a chance at living out a sports dream, I'd consider it.

I handed in my scratch-off ticket right after some guy dropped off about 300 non-winning tickets. Talk about your groin-kick demoralizing moments in life.  He wasn't alone. Many people had many tickets.

Right then I knew I had no chance of being one of the lucky two picked at the end. I rarely play the lottery, which is to say if someone else spends their money on a scratch-off ticket for me, I'll scratch it off.

Life all comes down to a few moments, so I decided to maximize this moment.

I walked toward the mound. More accurately, I walked toward the taped-off spot about 12 feet in front of the mound where the lottery had set up the point to throw. Not fair. I want the mound! What ever happened to a dollar a dream? I paid my dollar. I have a dream. Clearly, that's just marketing yang. And I think it was gaffer tape. Hofstra can't be happy about that.

There were two "mounds" to throw from. On each side of the plate were padded boards with designs and a big hole in the middle. The hole was about the width of the plate, which seemed appropriate. But the height of the hole was a serious problem. Basically, you had to throw at what would be the batter's shoulder for a strike.

"There's no way an ump will give you that call," I said to one of people working near the mound.

Not sure if he appreciated that, but a few of the older people out there enjoyed it.

The fella ahead of me was on what might have been his third inning of work. That's how many times he took his three pitches. Hey, the rules allow for unlimited turns on the mound, so why not play by the rules.

"Stop that soft stuff, throw cheese," I said to him. "In The Show, they call that pus."

He laughed.

My turn.

A quick check of my medicine cabinet earlier in the morning yielded zero Advil and a fully depleted supply of Fashion friend Cristina's painkillers. This is going to hurt.

"Are you guys insured for torn rotator cuffs?" I asked.

"No," the worker said.

"Oh well, here goes."

First pitch, strike. Pure gas.

Second pitch, banked-in strike. Two-seamer.

Third pitch, well, hold on. Some background is order here.

I'm not smart. In a Babe Ruth game when I was 16, I was throwing a no-hitter. With two outs in the seventh and final inning and two strikes on the batter, my catcher called for a curveball and I shook him off, deciding to blow a fastball by him and cap off the no-hitter with flair. He hit a double. I gave up four runs, got the hook. I got the win, but I felt like a schmuck of wheels for three days.

Back to Wednesday and that third pitch. I'm not about to make the same mistake again. So, I threw the hook. It had some serious Barry Zito bite on it. And then it bit the bottom of the board. So much for the strikeout.

"Yeah, but did you see that thing drop," I said to no one in particular. "I still got it."

What I don't got now is two dollars in my pocket, a healthy left shoulder, or that no-hitter.

But I'm still running down the dream. Hey, you never know.