Visit to Wonderland

Coon Family Reunion: August 2011

September 2009

September 2009

Miho Swinging For The Fence!

August 19, 2011

Call it our second childhood if you like, but Dotti and I like to go down to Wonderland, and local arcade with some fun outdoor activities too, such as batting cages, and miniature golf and go-carts. Dotti likes the games inside and I love the batting cages. Naturally, with our grandson in town, we had to go and visit Wonderland.

One of the things that Dotti likes to do is to play games and win the tickets that they dispense, and then give some of the tickets to some of the kids at the arcade. They can be turned in for prizes, and it sets Dotti's heart aglow to see the kids eyes light up when they find out that Dotti is giving some tickets away. This brother and sister were very excited by the tickets. (For privacy I covered the girl's face with tickets using Photoshop, but the boy's face was already covered in the picture.) Dotti normally hits a jackpot or two and sometimes she will just turn the machine over to a child and parent to collect the tickets that are pouring out. She also saves some to hand out to our Hunter and soon for Parker as well, since he is getting old enough to enjoy some of the prizes.

I somehow didn't bring a camera to this event. (Those who know me well, will be shocked by that statement, because whenever I am up, even while still in my pajamas, I carry a pocket camera with me everywhere. To be without it just doesn't happen. But somehow it did here.) Fortunately, Miho had her camera along! We passed her camera back and forth some, but she took the videos that I got the following basketball pictures from. Thank you Miho!

Of course our Kai found a basketball machine and was pumping the balls through the hoop. Thumbs Up!

He has become quite a basketball player, as he showed in our Coon Family Men's Basketball game. As soon as one shot was on its way, he was grabbing a new ball and setting up for his next shot.

Father and son shooting together on two different machines. I scanned through the video and got this sequence where both of them hit a basket at the same time, and you can follow the balls from their hands to their respective baskets. Glenn was shooting at a higher frequency, so I had first of all to catch a moment when they were in sync with each other, and catch a time when they both hit their shots. I enjoyed watching the two of the shoot—Son and Grandson, doing something I used to do a lot of with our sons when they were still at home with us. I hope my boys enjoyed it at least half as much as I did when they were kids. What a blessing they both were, and are!

When we first arrived, I took Glenn, Miho and Kai out to the batting cages, while Dotti remained inside, because of her bad hips. This is not to say Dotti doesn't like to hit the ball. I took these pictures in 2009 and 2010, when Dotti's hips were still okay enough to hit in the cage. (Hopefully soon, she will be doing this again!)

The pictures in May are of Dotti in the 50 mph baseball cage. She made some contact with the ball but it was a bit fast for her. The ones in September were in the slow pitch softball cage. You can track the ball from the machine up in the air and then down to where she hit it. The final picture of that set shows a well hit ball heading off to the left. In 2010 Dotti only batted once and that was in July. The picture shows a ball leaving her bat. She aggravated the arthritis in her right hip on a boat in August that year, and from then on her pain kept the batting cages, along with a lot of other things in life, out of the question. However, I think she will be back out there again, perhaps late in the season in 2012.

Fortunately, Dotti loves playing the arcade games, as already mentioned, so she didn't feel too left out. We put Kai in a slow batting cage and he hit a set of balls, but it wasn't catching his fancy too much, so he went inside to be with Grandma and play some arcade games. Meanwhile, the rest of us remained at the cages and hit some balls.

First Miho hit in cage number 6 (35 to 40 mph).

She was getting all set in the batter's box while Glenn was putting in the token for the machine.

Now, Glenn is safely outside of the cage as the pitching machine was about to start hurling balls to Miho.

Here she is caught in mid swing.

Miho has her eye on the ball and

is all set to start her swing.

The ball is on the way and Miho is ramping up her swing in hopes of giving the ball a good ride.

If you look closely, you can see the ball on its way. (It is in the air and located right above the one lying on the ground.)

Outside the cage, Miho displayed her war wound, from a ball that was fouled off her arm. Frown

She was a trooper and took it well. She is a lot like Dotti, wanting to get in there and try things and eager to have fun. And you see she is still smiling despite the injury. Thumbs Up!

This final picture of Miho was taken with her camera set to a composite mode. It took several pictures in a row and superimposed them over each other, as a multiple exposure shot. I thought this one looked so cool, I used it at the top of the page as part of the heading photo for this area.

Glenn and I went to Cage number 4, which is the 60mph pitching machine. Unfortunately, the 70 mph machine was out of service and cage number 3 was padlocked closed.

But we still had fun trading off swings in the cage. (Each set of 12 tokens gets you 25 pitches.) Glenn is focused and ready to swing at the oncoming pitch.

Here is a composite picture of Glenn's swing. The ball got blurred out of the shot, but it looks like he hit it nonetheless!

The confrontation! My son, his bat and the ball are going to have a meeting of the minds as it were.

Smack! There goes the ball on a little ride.

Here is a close up of Glenn smacking the ball. That's my boy!

Finally the old man got in there. Glenn was kind enough to say that he was very impressed with the way I hit the ball left handed. On most days I make slightly better contact hitting from the left side of the plate, but I think I get more power from the right side.

In this shot I am zeroing in on a belt high fastball, striding forward into the pitch. From the time I was in the single digits in my age I have loved hitting baseballs. It would have been heaven for me as a boy to have a batting cage like this to use regularly. I still love it, although it has been 50 years since I was in single digits.

The ball is just a blur on the right side of the picture as I start my swing in order to meet it. If you look at my shins, you can see I have a pair of black shin guards on. I learned the hard way that a ball fouled off an old shin can take months if not years to heal up. In 2009 I fouled a ball off of one of my shins on one visit to the batting cages, and then on the next visit to the cages I fouled one off of my other shin. Ron, my high school buddy, suggested I pick up some shin guards. I have bounced a couple of balls off my toes since getting the shin guards, but no more leg injuries. (Thanks Ron!)

This was another pitch, but you can see it is about at the same level as it heads for the plate. The pitching machine moves the ball around from pitch to pitch. The 70 mph machine has sent some pretty wild pitches on occasion. I have been hit in the upper thigh one time, before I realized how far inside the ball might come. Sometimes it puts one "in the dirt" and other times it will be shoulder high. It is good batting practice. The other machines have not seemed to move it around as much as the 70 mph machine, but that may be a subjective evaluation that is based upon the fact that the ball is coming faster, and you have to react faster as a result. Changes become more noticeable that way. A couple of times I have had to slap a ball away from my legs with the bat to avoid getting hit, when I couldn't move my feet fast enough. It keeps you on your toes.

When I got around to the right side I was warmed up a bit more and ready to get on the pitch quicker. I moved forward, as you can see. I am almost out of the cage, striding to the edge of the green paint. My right leg is just touching the front line of the batter's box. When no one is in any of the other cages, and there is no chance of getting hit by a batted ball, I will sometimes go forward completely out of the cage to get a "faster" pitch. It is funny how I can feel completely different from day to day, but on a really good day, I will move forward out of the cage even with the 70 mph machine and have no trouble making good contact with the ball. Other days, I have to stay back in the box and use more time to get around on it. No two days are exactly alike.

This shot shows how my feet are positioned for this pitch. I move back and forth as my energy level varies. I normally hit 200 pitches and by the end of the session I am pretty tired. It helps moving forward and back to change the quickness I have to use to meet the ball. It also is very helpful being able to swap from left to right and back again, sometimes in the middle of a set of 25 pitches. You use different muscles and the same muscles differently from each side of the plate. So, when my muscles tire a bit, I can turn around and hit from the other side, and it gives me an energy boost.

You can see I didn't get much of a follow through on that swing, so the pitch fooled me a bit and I had to poke it back at the machine with very little power behind it.

It was 84 degrees out that afternoon, and it was around 3 pm as we were batting. I started off with my long-sleeved shirt on, but in time I got warmed up enough to take it off and go with my tee shirt.

Here is a composite photo of two swings of mine. I was going for power, holding the bat down on the end, and standing deep in the box. Judging from the look on my face I must have hit it pretty well.

I love hitting the ball, but the really fun part of this day was spending it with my family. I was very happy that they chose to do something with me that I really enjoy. We could have done something else, and I would have loved it too, because they would have been with me. But it was special that they did this particular thing with me. We laughed, and all had a good time, and outside at the batting cages, and inside on the arcaded games, it was a bonding time that both Dotti and I will remember for a long time.