What started out the night before looking to be 42 degrees and frigid, actually turned out to be high 50s and quite nice. The field was dry, no ants and the sun was out. Much like Gridlocks recent beatdowns were payment for his BQ and Chiefs failures, this was to be payment for Ripken (Rudy) not getting his chance to play baseball for the Fighting Irish. Since pitchers and catchers will soon report for spring training, the official end of winter, the workout was themed to get us ready should the MLB coming knocking. By the way, is there any worse time of year when all there is to watch on TV is basketball in February?
After reciting the 8 core principals, 3 were said twice due to early onset half-heimers, we headed out on a mozy. The serpentine run through the cars quickly turned into a CSAUP. This foreshadowed much of the shenanigans to follow. We nur’d to the woodsy path next to the gravel drive, did bridge squat pulls across and ended in a skinny circle of SSHs. Mozied back to said bridge, repeated said bridge pulls and headed to the field. Ripken tried to teach the Pax how to lead off a base, get a good jump and steal the next base. After two tries, it was determined that our base stealing days may be behind us. Recall chose to only run 90 feet out of protest since that is the official base distance.
The COP was held in the outfield and was short. Push jacks, Imperial Walkers, Hillbilly Walkers, Merkins and Moroccans. Many whined, some proclaimed old age stiffness, all sucked it up.
In a baseball game, you typically have the Starting pitcher (long hair, pretty smile, all the girls…think Scrum), the Middle Relievers (house in the suburbs, nice family, workhorse for the team, a belly to show all their years…like Drake), and the Closer (long beard, weird superstitions, drinks whiskey from the bottle and a couple arrests on his record…Tex comes to mind). We broke the beatdown up into 3 sections accordingly.
The Starter – everyone grabbed two balls (baseballs that is) from the bucket, headed to the Echo Chamber. There we partnered; one partner stood in place and rolled the balls, moving the other side to side in a fielding grounders drill. This required butt low, hands out and lots of side shuffles. Repeat, repeat, repeat. With our balls in hand (Dash learned some new words and phrases to add to his 7 year old lexicon about balls today. Sorry about that Sparky, I think Manziel was the primary instigator), we headed back to the field.
Occasionally, the first starter is so worried about his hair, he forgets to throw strikes. So we had to have a second starter (Big Mac has all the attributes of a second-starter, minus the long hair). This is the guy who was just brought up from the minors with hopes of making it to the “bigs.” Here’s his chance in front of 40,000 fans to show what he’s got. So our second starter was a set of Insanity workouts in rapid succession with no rest between exercises, 30-45 seconds each, 3 rounds with 10-15 seconds of rest between sets. Twist and Punch, Mummy Kicks, Ski Jumps, Power Knees, Squat Thrusts. The last set was at an insane rate to get the HR maxed.
The middle reliever showed up as our second starter to faded. His name was DORA. 100 V-ups, 150 Merkins, 200 Squats, 250 Plank reach Under, and 300 Moroccan Night Clubs.
Finally the closer, this was more for fun, but turned out to be a good workout. Gloves were passed out and Pax took to the field. Hitters hit, then ran to the field; everyone shagged balls. Everyone was given 5 cuts while Ripken tossed the balls. Clearly little league was many years behind them, but all managed to get some hits. Amazon, Ripken and Recall’s past experiences shined. Mr. Clean’s past high school baseball experience must have been at The School for the Blind.
Quote of the day, Mr. Clean talking to Drake…”I played baseball in high school and I couldn’t hit a single ball today.” Drake to Mr. Clean “I played guitar in high school and I hit all 5!”
During COT, Amazon gave a passionate testimony. We were very proud of him to share what’s been on his mind and we all laid hands on him in prayer. THIS IS WHAT F3 IS REALLY ALL ABOUT. You can find a workout anywhere, you can also have golf buddies and friends to watch a game with, but when you really need another man to lean on, WE ARE THERE WHEN OUR PAX NEED US MOST.
Ripken concluded with a word, “Righteousness need not be popular, it just needs to be righteous. It’s doing the right thing when no one is looking. As far as I can tell, we are out here, with other Pax, starting our days out right…when everyone else is in bed and not looking.” They do see us though. They see how different we are when we do COT in front of Bayside at Men’s Night, they see us in the Wawa parking lots, when we moved furniture, do homeless outreaches…they see us be stand up men in our workplaces and most of all, our families see us get up early and return home different day after day.
Ripken out.
Thank you all For what you do everyday