The importance of warming up

We picked up my grandson Ryan so he could spend a week with us. That was last Friday and we’ve been busy.

Monday morning we went to a local park with baseball fields so we could play catch. To our dismay we found all four fields padlocked and inaccessible, but then we discovered the batting cages. And they were unlocked! We availed ourselves of this boon – I pitched while he practiced batting left handed. Lot of fun. Then in the afternoon we tossed the ball for a while. Good day.

Tuesday morning we headed back to the batting cages. We went straight to work. I threw the first pitch. And it hurt! My shoulder that is. I tossed another one. Man! (I should take a moment to explain – my left shoulder hurt last year and I came oh so close to having surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff. Insurance denied the surgery and I took steroid pills which seemed to work wonders, the pain in my left shoulder is almost non-existent. Now my right shoulder is giving me trouble and this was the shoulder that was hurting.) Ryan noticed my pain and said, “We can go back home.” Very thoughtful, but I replied, “No way!” Then he suggested we warm up first.

What a novel idea and great suggestion! (You see, in my head I’m still 25-30 years old and undamaged.) We got closer together and began to toss the ball back a forth. At first it hurt, but as we continued to toss the ball the pain went away. I backed up a few steps and continued to toss the ball. A couple more steps back and so on until I was at the spot where I would be pitching. Arm limbered up, no pain, ready to go. Which we did.

This shows the importance of warming up. Of course, I’m having to take a non-steroid anti-inflammatory to alleviate the pain in my shoulder, but I can still pitch if I warm up properly!!