As a pitcher, I'm not a bad writer

Donny Robinson, the BMX racer who stands an excellent chance of winning a medal at the Beijing Olympics this summer, threw out the first pitch here Tuesday night. Afterward, according to Cubs’ officials, he was almost shaking as he told them he had been more nervous doing that than at any of his races. 

As I say, no pressure. 

This opportunity came up out of the blue. I had been in Chicago for the media summit the U.S. Olympic Committee traditionally holds a few months before a Games. There’s a lot of excitement here about Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics; the Cubs offered someone a chance to throw out the first pitch. By late Wednesday, the athletes at the seminar had blown out of town.  

So that someone ultimately turned out to be me. 

“Can you really throw a strike?” asked Brian Cazeneuve of Sports Illustrated. “Did you pitch in high school?”  

No.

“Don’t push it,” said Drew Johnson, who works with Peter Carlisle in representing swimmer Michael Phelps and others. Drew said he had pitched in high school. Throw it, he counseled. 

“Stay loose. Stay within yourself. Take it one pitch at a time,” said Bobby Vasilopulos, who produced my on-air appearances at the 2004 Athens Olympics from the site of the ancient Games in Olympia, Greece. 

As I say, no pressure.  

I have been to Wrigley countless times. I went to Northwestern and spent many moments in my school career in the right-field bleachers. 

In those days, I could take the el to the park from Evanston and get a bleacher seat for $5.  

Those days are long gone, of course, but it was back onto the el Wednesday afternoon to get to Wrigley. Twenty-two minutes from the Loop, $1.75. Easy. 

Spring finally sprung Wednesday in Chicago, the temperature in the 70s after what all my friends who are still here have described as a brutal winter. 

Great – except that at the corner of Clark and Addison the wind was gusting so severely from the west that I thought my appearance would end up with me looking less like Carlos Zambrano, the Cubs’ starter Wednesday, and more like Stu Miller, who was famously buffeted around the mound in gusty Candlestick Park in the 1961 All-Star Game. 

Inside the park, though, all was calm. 

After being escorted down onto the field, I was given a ball. 

Some people, it turns out, spend months working out for their big moment. U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, for example, who threw out the first pitch at Wrigley in September, 2005, had warmed up all that summer, throwing in a suburban Washington, D.C., park to his daughter. (His pitch came in high and a bit wide.) 

While the Reds went through batting practice, I got four 20-foot lobs behind the plate with Patrick Sandusky, spokesman for the Chicago 2016 bid committee. Then we were told – ever so politely – to move along. 

At which point it was time for some advice. 

Crane Kenney, chairman of the Cubs, suggested, “Don’t worry about the velocity.”

 Mike Lufrano, senior vice president for community affairs, said, “Arc it.” 

Dusty Baker, the Reds’ manager, said, “Don’t bounce it.” 

Remember, too, that you’re throwing downhill, Baker said. Which means, he explained, that if you think you’re throwing to the knees, you’re wrong – it’s going to end up at the chest. 

“Ah, just do what comes naturally,” Baker finally said with a smile. 

There were actually three of us first-pitchers on Wednesday at Wrigley: me; 15-year-old Jack Manilow, a freshman at Francis W. Parker School on Chicago’s Near North Side; and Mike Kowalski, chairman of Tiffany & Co. 

The group Kowalski was with, a clutch of husbands and wives, posed for a photo beforehand along the third-base line – many of the women, it was observed, sporting enormous diamonds. 

Kowalski went out and shanked it. His pitch turned into a worm-burner, bouncing halfway between the mound and the plate, skittering past infielder Eric Patterson, who had been called in for the ceremonial duties.  

Patterson had just been called up from triple-A earlier in the day, replacing star outfielder Alfonso Soriano, who had strained his right calf in Tuesday night’s game while hopping after a catch. 

So that was another piece of advice – don’t hop, Patrick said. 

For his part, Jack was super-nervous. 

“I have been scared for a while,” he confided. “There are 30,000 to 40,000 people in the stands. I have been worrying about screwing up, throwing the ball away or something like that.” 

Jack went out there and smoked it. He can be proud of himself. A generous umpire might have given him a low strike at the knees. 

I followed Jack out there. 

My name went up on the scoreboard in center field. 

I got to the rubber, turned around, looked at the plate and, as if through a tunnel, saw Patterson. Good lord, he was a long way away. 

No time like the present. 

I kicked, dealt – and threw. The ball arced home. Lots of arc. 

Then it came down – on the back part of home plate itself, Patterson way behind the plate short-hopping it. 

A little more effort by my man – like, if he would have leaned forward just a touch – and I would have had a clean throw. 

As it is, I walked off the mound with my dignity. Two NBC friends, as it turned out, were in the stands, about two dozen rows up. I pumped my fist in a high sign; they pumped right back. 

By the third inning, the Cubs had built up a 9-1 lead. “You may have to throw out the first pitch every night!” I was told repeatedly. 

Jack, meanwhile, asked me, “Are you singing the seventh-inning stretch, too?” 

No way, kid. 

But thanks for the thought.