(#98)
Phantom baseball infield-practice creates a fun time for ballplayers, and an even more fun time for fans, when done correctly. What is phantom baseball infield-practice? It is the simplest infield practice in the world, as there is no baseball used. That’s right! Everything is “make believe,” which is a blast, because players use their imagination and creativity to improvise their pre-game infield practice.
by Jack Perconte
I have never been a big fan of the Phantom Infield routine. My teams have never done it. Not in practice and not before games. I never saw the point. I’ve always thought it was un-sportsman-like conduct to do this in pre-game activities, especially at the other team’s field.
I’m one of those guys who always thought the whole pre-game batting practice routines were not productive and perhaps even a waste of time. Batting practice at 50 mph on the field, 2 hours before game time never made a lot of sense to me. Players love it, but not me. I even tried to avoid that routine in practices. Even the infield/outfield routines to impress the scouts are not very productive and most of the time there wasn’t a scout anywhere in sight.
My thought has always been, get loose, get ready and let’s play. Like it basketball; get dressed, get loose, run out, do some layups, take a few shots and tip off.
In my mind, it was all about playing the game.
There was only one coach who pulled this phantom infield “stunt” when I was coaching at Hinds. We were playing at Itawamba and had to endure this and then play a doubleheader.
I didn’t like it, neither did my players, so they did what they should have done… beat ’em like a drum in both games of the doubleheader.
Our headline: Team takes infield with no balls and then plays doubleheader with no bats.
The phantom infield routine reared it’s ugly head again in the pre-game routine of Jackson Prep vs. Hillcrest Christian School on Senior Night at our park. Same coach.
Prep had a team with four future SEC players on it, Jake Mangum, Gene Wood, Noah Hughes, and Parker Caracci, and Hillcrest did not. There was actually one of our players who made it to the SEC (Preston Johnson; Hinds/MSU, 2021 National Champion), but he was only in the seventh grade on this night and was not pitching. (Note: If he threw 93 mph in the 7th grade, believe me, he would have pitched).
This first game of the series was the only semi-realistic chance we had to beat them and those chances were pretty slim. I was not looking forward to it at all. And to be honest, neither were my players. Prep knew it was going to be easy. Most of their games were. They knew when they had to throttle up their play and their focus. Thus my aggravation with the pre-game playground stuff.
I’m not saying “take it easy or let up on the bad teams.” I’m saying, just play the game and cut out the silly theatrics.
The final score that night was 8-0. It could have been worse and it was worse in a doubleheader a few weeks later.
Believe me, I’ve had good teams like Prep’s before and we played teams that weren’t nearly as good as we were and we knew it, but we never flaunted it. We just got ready and played the games. We played them all the same way. No excessive jubilation, no excessive dejection.
Here’s how it worked:
Prep ran onto the field just like a normal round of infield/outfield, but there were no balls and the coach had no fungo. He pretended he was hitting ground balls and fly balls to the outfield, who would field the imaginary balls perfectly and then make perfect throws to the bases. The infielders were in their relay and cutoff positions or covering the bases. They would take the throws, apply the tags, and make a perfect throws to another bases. Sometimes they would make long runs and pretend to make an awesome catch and the team in the dugout and the fans would cheer them on. Then there were diving imaginary catches, etc. Then onto the infield. Rinse and repeat, then off the field and to the dugout where they were met with imaginary high fives, imaginary butt slapping, imaginary chest bumps and fist bumps.
I had often thought that if somebody ever did that again, we would mock them right back in our round of infield, by doing just the opposite. The coach can’t make contact with his imaginary swing, imaginary balls would be misplayed by everyone, going under their legs and over their heads, in-between hops would hit them in the chest. All the throws would be in the dirt, offline, or overthrown. When the shortstop fielded the imaginary ground ball, his fake throw would go over the first baseman’s head as he jumped high to catch it and we would even have a fan standing behind the fence who faked getting hit in the head by the fake overthrow and falling to the ground. One overthrow by the first baseman would go into the dugout with everybody scrambling to get out of the way. The catcher would even fake taking one in the privates and fall to the ground in fake agony and pain.
When it came time for the coach to hit the imaginary pop-ups to the catchers, one fake ball would go over the backstop, hit a fan, who was sitting in her lounge chair, in the head. She would lay out on the ground and someone would make an fake 9-1-1 call. The ambulance would drive up, the paramedics would do fake CPR, she would be resuscitated and the crowd would roar.
My players and fans were mesmerized by the routine, but I was not.
When I went to home plate to exchange lineups and go over the ground rules, I took a couple balls and handed them to the coach and said they had left these on the field. I told him he needed to practice on his fungo work, with quite a bit of sarcasm.
I came very close to sending my starting pitcher to the mound with instructions to “fake” the first pitch of the game. And when the umpire called it a ball, I would scream from the dugout that it was a strike and go out to home plate and start a 20-minute argument and finally get tossed and let my “loyal” assistant coach take it from there.
I changed my mind. After all, that would have been unsportsman-like conduct.
But, I should have done it and I wish I had.
Rick Clarke's Diary of a Mad Baseball Coach 