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A month ago I trudged back from the middle and slumped down
with my teammates, who wasted no time in telling me, pretty much as one, that
my bat didn’t sound right.
Now I get quite attached to my bats. But it turns out I’m
pretty fickle – I clearly didn’t like it as much as the idea of getting a new
one, and very quickly I decided to accept their pronouncement as gospel, and
embrace it as a perfect excuse to get a new bat.
I love new bats. There’s something deeply seductive about
the unknown promise of classy runs from a pristine blade. It’s an illusion, of
course. No bat will never boost your ability. Though it may boost your
confidence, and that is a priceless commodity.
Knocking in a bat is a strange chore. There’s something
arcane and ritualistic about it, like some mysterious rights-of-passage
ceremony. It’s one of those things you can simultaneously both relish and wish
you didn’t have to bother with.
You are supposed to knock a bat in for a minimum of two
hours, which is quite an ask unless you live on your own with no neighbours.
Get your bat mallet out in front of the telly, see how well that goes down. Or
when the kids are in bed.
The repeated knocks with the rounded mallet produce little
indentations on the blade, tiny petals of trauma on the surface, like a beaten
steel drum.
It’s like deliberately scuffing a new pair of shoes,
distressing them for both functional and aesthetic purposes. Broken-in bats
have a comfort and fit-for-purpose feel about them like worn-in shoes. Part of
that is the knowledge that they’ve done it before, it’s just another day,
there’s nothing to worry about. Whereas new shoes and new bats can both split
on you without warning.
This new one doesn’t have the clear plastic anti-scuff sheet
(or ‘bat condom’ as a teammate called it) that is the norm these days. The
business part of the blade is naked wood, which absorbs the blows of the
mallet, the thin coats of linseed oil, and the red cherries as you graduate to
old balls. Already it has character.
‘Pay close attention to the edges and the toe’, say the
clipped nineteenth century instructions. Yes all right, thank you. Have they
seen me bat? It reads like a snarky criticism of technique.
Has it helped? Maybe. Who knows? I like it. It feels nice.
And the runs are coming, if steadily. Sunday I was cruising along nicely, just
beginning to think, “you know what, a fifty about now would be a perfect way to
finish off a column about a new bat,” when Pauly ran me out – again! – on 37.
But on reflection, that’s probably a more realistic way to finish it anyway.
It’s certainly a realistic way to finish me.
- ends 477 words -
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