Splinter and Stand-up Rocks...

Thursday, July 1, 2010

I was dropping Don Alexander off at his home. He asked me to come out back – he had something to show me. I followed him through his back yard and towards a chain-linked fence, which separated his property from the elementary school they abutted. The fence was buried in a small growth of woods about 20 feet deep at the edge of his back yard and he had criminally damaged the fence, cutting it from top to bottom, to allow access to the school property. The woods covered this act quite nicely and as yet, he has spent no jail time for this blatant destruction of school property.

As we slipped through the fence and down a short, grassy slope, we found ourselves on a decent all-weather track, which ran around the football field – the former playing field for Strongsville High School. We were standing on the far side 50-yard line, looking towards the home stands and the press box above. There were no visiting stands – long since removed, I guessed.

“This is it. Alexander Field and the home of ‘Splinter’ and ‘Stand-up’,” Don explained.

Both were games that involved baseball – his favorite sport – and he went into a lengthy explanation (everything Don says gets that connotation) about the rules of the games and the stats he’s been keeping on them since Moby Dick was a minnow.

“So…one batter and no fielders…other players just stand out in the field and near the bleachers to keep track of the 31 balls,” he said.

“Why 31 balls?”

“Cause that’s how many we had when we started. Anyway…you get one point for any ball that hits the fence in front of the stands. Five points for any ball that bounces over or hits the fence on one bounce. Ten points for a homer over the fence and twenty points for one that clears the stands…you know…out of the park,” he said. You got eight points for something, but I can’t remember what.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

“Yeah? Really? I KNEW you’d want to. Let’s go get Colby.”

Colby, you may remember, is Don’s son. He recently won the State Championship at 1,600 meters in track. He went on to a fourth place finish in the High School Nationals for the some distance. He’s tall and skinny…you know…a runner, but he’s been playing this game his entire life and apparently is pretty good. One of his geeky running friends was over and so they both came down to play the game.

We spent some time tossing a ball around to loosen up (55-year olds need this more than 17-year olds) and then the game was under way. Zack hit first – it was only his second try at Splinter – and he finished with a long home run and around 58 points. It was my turn.

“Don…I haven’t swung a bat in…oh…30 years or so,” I said. He was the pitcher and squatted to the side of me. He would toss the balls underhand the six feet that separated us and I was to swat them as far as I could.

“Hey…you’ll probably miss a few, but you’ll get it back in no time,” he said. He’s one of the great motivators of our time.

My first swing produced a sharp line drive that reached the fence for one point. “See…nuthin’ to it,” he said.

I took my first twenty swings right-handed, fouling off half a dozen, but scoring some long doubles and about 20 points. I decided to go left-handed for my last ten swings. About the third swing, I caught one just right and sent it over the fence and about 10 rows deep My final tally was a paltry ‘38’, but when Zack told me that’s what he’d gotten for his first score and Don said ‘48’ was his best ever (I’m having troubles believing that), I felt okay. Then Colby stepped in. He’s second on the all-time list with a total somewhere in the low 200’s. Another runner, Donny Roys, holds the all-time best with ‘231’.

Colby muffed the first 8-10 swings, but then hit five in a row into the seats. He ended with 93 points, which was completely unsatisfactory, as his body language showed from where I was shagging balls. We played another round and I got worse – my knee was getting sore and my shoulders were tired. We moved from there to a game of stand-up, which I detail in another blog, but it involved hitting, fielding, and chasing balls and by the end of two-plus hours of this, I was really feeling it. These guys do this all the time and although I know Colby loves the video games, I suspect he enjoys this more. Either game can be played with as little as two people, is very active, easy, and a ton of fun.

The Alexander family includes four children, and Don and Rae, and I assure you there isn’t 10 pounds of fat in the entire group. It could be about the running, but even without it, they are just a group that loves activity and would be lean anyway. The bottom line here is…there are many ways to get in your workout and keep the weight off and they don’t have to be called workouts, either. I burned a bunch of calories and since it was 7 p.m. by the time we finished up, determined that I did not need a run. I’m so looking forward to the soreness I will surely suffer tomorrow, but I’m also looking forward to bringing Jack over and trying to surpass my ‘38’.

Splinter Duration: 1 hour. Stand-up duration: 1 hour.

Training Heart Rate: 80 when I was happy. 100 when I wasn’t. 120 when talking trash to Colby and Zack.

Calories burned during workout: Let’s say 750.