I just finished six uninterrupted hours of data entry. Which reminded me of exactly how much I despise data entry.

This afternoon, it seems like a good time to bring back one of my favorite posts from this blog’s early days.

NOTE: You might think this post is out of date, since I couldn’t possibly suck at Wii as much today as I did a year ago.

You would be wrong.

Originally posted August 27, 2008

Last night Abby talked me into playing Wii Baseball with her. This means I really love her, because I generally stink at Wii Sports.

Not surprising, being that in the real world, I have the same experience with every sport that involves a ball:

SOCCER + Asthma = Goalie (which might be okay if I could ever block the ball)

BASKETBALL: can’t dribble, can’t shoot, don’t understand the rules, hate running (see: asthma above). I can’t even play HORSE.

And don’t get me started on GOLF or TENNIS. Hitting a small ball with a long stick is completely outside of my ability.

With VOLLEYBALL, I can’t spike at all, but I’m a decent setter, so people at least let me play.

As for BASEBALL, it’s the only sport I actually played as a kid. For one year. At age nine. Girls didn’t play much Little League baseball back then (Thank GOD, for reasons you will soon understand), so it was actually fast-pitch softball.

I played left field. Not because I could catch well or throw accurately or far (I couldn’t. At all.), but because the girls in our league rarely hit out of the infield, and I had the third baseman AND shortstop between me and the ball.

And I’m SURE the only reason I was allowed to bat (not that I was begging to or anything) was because I’m a lefty. Back then, the nine-year-old pitchers that I faced were completely flummoxed by left-handed hitters. (Nowadays, they probably KILL by age nine.)

Most of them could not throw even one strike for me, much less THREE.

Fortunately, this smoothly dovetailed with my batting  strategy: NEVER SWING.

Since not swinging at enough “balls” gets you a “walk,” I probably got on base more than all the girls except the coach’s all-star daughter.

And every single time I got my inevitable walk to first base, everyone shouted “good eye!”

As if I’d assessed each pitch, seen that it was not a strike, and resisted swinging. Yeah. In actual fact, I had stood frozen in place, just praying that a pitch didn’t hit ME.

At the end of the season, the coach even handed me a trophy:

The Good Eye Award.

(He did this with a straight face. I admire him for that now.)

Anyway, last night I discovered that my foolproof strategy is useless on the Wii. I suddenly had to SWING.

(Every flick of the wrist by the pitcher is a strike. Even if the aforementioned flick is delivered while hanging upside-down off the front of the couch. Hypothetically, of course.)

It’s okay, I told myself. I’m much more mature than I was back then. Surely 30+ year later, I’ll be less likely to choke.

Wanna know how well I did?

My five-year-old struck me out almost every time. In the entire game, I got two hits. Yes, TWO.

And I have no idea how or why. So I can’t even learn from the experience.

I think I need Remedial Wii.

This is Mii on the Wii. Yes, I hit a home run. I'm smiling because I have no idea how I did it.

Originally posted at: The Red Clay Diaries

Copyright 2007-2010. Use only with permission.

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Wii Baseball 101