Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 1, 1994 TAG: 9404300003
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ HE had not slept well the night before, kept awake by doubts that might seem silly for a man of 42. Over and over in his mind, they played themselves out.
Would anybody want him?
Would anybody want a pitcher who hasn't pitched an inning of baseball since 1966, since his days in little league, when he was 15?
Larry Beheler didn't know.
Would he throw wild? Or across the plate? In the dirt? Or the strike zone?
He had not practiced for the next morning at all, when he would return to the same little league field of his youth to answer the questions that kept him tossing so restlessly. The only thing he did in preparation was grip his son's baseball a few times just to get the feel of one in his hand again.
When morning came, he couldn't eat breakfast. He was too nervous.
The day was April 9, a Saturday, and the weather was beautiful. The temperature was a perfect 60 degrees, the sun bright, the sky clear and the clouds wispy and far away. It was the kind of day that loves baseball.
Tryouts were being held at Maher Field in the shadows of Mill Mountain and Victory Stadium for something that is gaining popularity across the country, and has now come to Roanoke.
Adult baseball - something Larry Beheler had dreamed about for years.
He gave up pitching and baseball with no teen-age remorse, so that he could get a job and buy a car. As an adult, though, he regretted his decision, forever condemned to play the less-challenging sport of slow-pitch softball, and to wonder whether he could have amounted to something, maybe even played professionally.
He had a good arm once, one of the best in his little league. One year alone, he pitched three no-hitters. All of them at Maher Field.
Boys who become men never forget such things.
Nor do they forget how to throw. Despite the doubts he wrestled in his sleep the night before, Beheler, a thick-muscled man whose belly has gotten away from him in recent years, carried a confidence that he could still pitch a baseball about as well as he did when he was 15.
But pitching would have to wait.
When he arrived at the April tryouts, along with 50 other men, he learned it was his hitting ability that would be tested first.
He would get eight pitches from a pitching machine to show how well he could handle a baseball bat after all these years.
Beheler's butterflies grew worse. He had not practiced hitting a baseball, either, and he worried that his years of smacking slow, fat softballs had ruined his ability to hit a fast, smart hardball.
Would anybody want him?
The question nagged at his mind and his confidence. Would any of the team managers, scouting the tryouts for aging talent, pick him for their teams? Or would he be passed over?
He gripped an aluminum bat, stepped up to home plate and eyed the pitching machine sitting on the pitcher's mound, its rotating wheels poised to launch a baseball in his direction - at 60 mph. He would get eight chances.
On his left hand, he wore a batting glove bought special for the tryouts. In his mouth, he chewed strawberry bubble gum.
The pitches came fast, faster than he remembered them from when he was young. Yet, he handled them. On his first seven swings, he hit four balls into the infield, two into the outfield and missed just one altogether. It wasn't a powerhouse display by any means, but it wasn't embarrassing.
On his last pitch, he swung extra hard, hoping for a home run, hoping to attract notice.
The ball fouled off his bat and rattled the backstop behind him. The notice didn't come.
Maybe it would come with his pitching, but pitching would still have to wait.
Next came fielding, catching and throwing for the players wanting infield and outfield positions. Beheler skipped this part of the tryouts, gambling solely on his arm to win him a place on somebody's team.
He warmed up for awhile in the bullpen.
Beheler, a policeman at Carvins Cove Reservoir, holds a simple philosophy about pitching. The most important thing is control, getting the ball over the plate, throwing strikes, consistency.
When he finally took the mound, he carried this philosophy with him.
He felt good. He had watched a half-dozen other prospective pitchers throw wildly or poorly before him, and that boosted his confidence. His doubts faded.
He had eight pitches to show what he could do.
And he showed he could throw strikes, that he had control. He showed a smooth motion to his delivery that made it clear he had pitched before, even if it had been almost 30 years earlier. In the end, he proved he was the best pitcher at the tryouts.
Surely, someone would want him.
He gathered with the 50 other men in a group after the tryouts and waited for the teams to begin picking players. On his shirt he kept pinned his tryout number: 303. He stood with his arms folded, his glove tucked into the top of his shorts.
There would be four team managers drafting players in his division, the 30-and-older league.
One of those managers was George Smith. Like Beheler, he had come to the tryouts hoping to make a team, but ended up agreeing to run one.
Smith would get the third pick.
Beheler waited. He waited through the first pick and the second and then it was Smith's turn. Smith would call his team the Roanoke Mudcats.
He called out.
"303."
\ That was three weeks ago.
Today, weather permitting, Beheler will pitch his first game, and carry with him to the pitcher's mound at Maher Field many of the same thoughts that played on his mind at the tryouts.
But eight pitches, that's one thing. Nine innings is quite another.
The challenge for Larry Beheler remains.
Can he still pitch?
by CNB