Batter in the box will be swinging for sweet spot, Christilaw writes

Thinking can be overrated.

Not everywhere. In most places, more thinking – not less – is definitely required.

But when it comes time to stepping into the batter’s box, a clear mind and good eye can solve a great many of the game’s greatest challenges.

Or as Crash Davis put it in Bull Durham: “Don’t think; it can only hurt the ball club.”

Hitting a ball thrown with velocity is, perhaps, the toughest challenge in all of sports. Think about it: a round leather ball is speeding toward a cylindrical bat held by a batter whose job is to “hit it square.”

A good fastball doesn’t give you much time to think and an exceptional change-up leaves you lots of reasons to second-guess yourself. A great breaking ball? That can just leave you muttering to yourself.

A batter’s box is a magical place, especially on a day when you feel confident. In a way, time stops when you get yourself set, swing the bat a few times to make sure your feet are set properly and assume your stance.

When you’re in the zone, your mind quiets and the rest of the world fades into the background as your eyes settle on the pitcher. It’s a stillness that precedes an act of bold and powerful intention.

When your timing is right and you hit the ball on the sweet spot, there is no other feeling in the world like the feel of driving a baseball.

There are days, especially the cold days at the start of the season, when miss-hitting a baseball leaves your hands numb. It’s painful. Hit it just right and it feels like a well-struck tuning fork. It’s a pun, but it’s pitch-perfect.

When you hit the ball “on the screws,” it takes all the self-control you can muster to not drop the bat and admire the flight of the ball.

The problem with that wonderful feeling is that it is entirely fleeting. You strive for it. You live in it while it’s happening. And you scramble to get it back once it vanishes.

Part of the problem is that your brain oftentimes abhors a vacuum and it races to fill in the silence with any noise it can make.

It will needlessly remind you that you are 0-for-your-last-6, it will flood your head with the score, the situation and why you should have had fruit with your lunch.

Silly brain.

Rudyard Kipling aside, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs …,” you probably don’t understand the situation. But you try.

Two of the best hitters in the Greater Spokane League are about to help lead their respective fastpitch softball teams into the playoffs, where the hitters are scary and the pitchers are fierce.

And both relish the opportunity.

Sierra Apodaca of University leads a lineup that, top to bottom, can hit the cover off the ball.

“I’m really looking forward to hitting against pitchers I haven’t seen before,” she insists. “It’s easier to go up there and just hit when you don’t have a history to think about. The problem with our league is that we’ve all been playing each other for years, and we know too much about what they like to throw and when they like to throw it.”

Kaitlyn Scoble hits lead-off for Shadle Park, a Class 3A squad that backs a top-notch pitcher with a potent lineup of its own.

“My job as a lead-off hitter is to go up (to the plate) and make them pitch to me,” she explained. “I want to get on base and make things happen, but I also want my teammates to get a chance to see what she’s going to throw so they can have a better idea of what to expect. That’s the job.”

And that’s what makes the postseason so special.

Bob Veale, a lefthander who pitched for both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Red Sox, once opined that “Good pitching will beat good hitting any time, and vice versa.”

Circular logic? Yup.

But that’s what you get with a game with three bases and a plate.

And it’s what makes it so special when the season begins to boil itself down to a handful of contenders.

It’s fun to watch.