If you've ever attended a baseball game, you're familiar with the crack of a bat. If you've ever seen Barry Bonds blast a long home run, you're familiar with the sound that an especially well-struck ball makes. Kevin Seitzer spent 11 years of his life playing for several major league teams, producing that exact sound for fans in the stands. He made his name spraying balls all over the diamond with his even, steady, professional swing, making friends with a bright smile and easygoing demeanor. I had the chance to catch up with Kevin this past week, get his thoughts on life, the game of baseball, and what he is going to do to help out the young Diamondback hitters.

    "When I was 15," Seitzer told me while walking toward the practice field, "My pops always got on my case. See, when I was a kid I had no patience, I wanted to hack, I wanted to crush every pitch - but one day after practice, he pulled me aside, and he told me, do you know what he told me?" - he was grinning, so I shook my head no.

    "Well, I'll tell ya what, he told me that there is always going to be another pitch. I was 15, and sort of a dumb kid, so at the time that made a lot of sense to me. Always another pitch. Well, until I struck out looking damn near 3 times in the first game of the season the next day!". With this, the man referred to by friends as 'Kev', or 'The Seitz' let out a booming laugh, and I was left wondering what exactly he was talking about.

    If you spend a little bit of time with Kevin Seitzer, you start to realize he doesn't necessarily make sense. Not like a normal person makes sense, at least. Something about him, is different, maybe he is just a touch off, perhaps best described as 2 degrees away from normalcy. Then again, the great ones are never normal, and Kevin Seitzer was certainly a great hitter. According to the kids he works with at his Mac-N-Seitz baseball academy in Kansas City, he's apparently also a great teacher, something the Diamondbacks hope will carry over well to the major league level.

*

    "Scouts."

     One word, and lengthy eye contact was at first all 'The Seitz' gave me for an answer when I asked him what was preventing most kids in the minors from making it to the big leagues.

    "Let me tell you what, when I was in the minor leagues, I had an A-ball season where I got on base damn near half the time. Now, this was back in the day, this was the 1980's, Madonna was still cool, so was batting average. I hit about .310 that half season, and do you know what a scout told me?"

    Kevin likes to speak like this. In my time with him he spoke mostly in questions, ones that he had the answer to. So I told the Yoda of hitting, that no, no I did not know.

    "The scout, he told me I should walk less. Because, if I walked less, I'd swing at more pitches, and then I would probably hit .350 instead of .310. Soon as I got promoted to AA, I did just that. Hit probably about 30 points better, but my on base percentage stayed the same, I realized this after the season, and I went back to how I did it before, do you know why?"

    Once again, I shook my head no.

    "Because," he said with a huge grin, "When it comes to work, I don't like doing it if I don't have to. Conservation of energy and all that stuff, there is a finite amount in our lil' tiny universe. So if I could get on base the same percentage without swinging the bat and relying on the ball finding a hole, why would I swing the bat?".

    This, this is the genius of Kevin Seitzer.

*

"Hell no! I always hated the inside pitch!", was the emphatic reaction from 'The Seitz', accompanied by a clenched fist pounding the table.

     You see, Kevin Seitzer doesn't like the inside pitch. He never did. Well, at least not to hit. If Kevin Seitzer were a pitcher, he would only throw inside pitches, at least that's what he told me during our lunch together. So, what if the hitters started pulling the inside pitches he would repeatedly throw?

    "I'd throw harder," Kevin told me with a knowing chuckle, "Maybe crank it up to 110, 115. That's miles per hour in case you don't understand how I roll, because there is nothing more painful than breaking a bat. I remember, when I first came up, I would rather get hit by a pitch than break a bat, I'd have rather fallen flat on my butt, or pulled a George (Brett) and sprung some hemorrhoids. Bats weren't cheap, and when you're making the league minimum, you'd definitely rather lean into the pitch and take one for the on base percentage than break your bat. For every bat I broke, that was a nice steak I could be eating, and I love a good steak. Not to mention, then I would have to have a bat funeral, which was always an ordeal-"

    Wait a minute. Bat funeral?

    "Well yeah...." he continued with a sheepish grin, "I always had bat funerals. In Kansas City, me and Bo (Jackson) would bury a hell of a lot of bats. At one point in time my back yard had no grass left in it thanks to all the bats we had buried. For some reason, the bats did not encourage new foilage growth. They sure did help the hits keep coming though."

    Once again, the genius of Kevin Seitzer.

*

    Of course, the anecdotes are nice. They are fun playful reminders that even a professional hitter, and now hitting instructor is a human being. They do not however, explain what Kevin Seitzer is going to do to help the Diamondbacks as a team.

    "Help them as a team?", he retorted while lighting up with excitement, "I am a team player. Kevin Seitzer is a team player. I get the job done, bar none, hands down," he told me, speaking more and more rapidly. "I look at this way, I look at it as the Diamondbacks have hired me to lead their offense to the promised land, and I'm Noah. I'm going to strap on my sandals, and lead them through this desert. We are going to get there, and we are going to win. That's it. That's how I help this team. You know, they say you can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink, well that's where I come in. I'm going to have the horses drinking, and I'll be damned if they don't like it."

    Small errors in his Biblical reference aside, I had to admire the man's enthusiasm.

    "I look at this job as, I will have it forever," he continued, "this job is eternally mine, as long as I do it well. I'm going to bust my butt to the degree that they will have no choice but to keep me on. We are going to succeed. Give me a number one offense, or give me a cooler full of light beer after the game."

    I also had to admire his flair for the dramatic. Hopefully, 'The Seitz' can bring some excitement, and drama to Chase Field this season - and maybe even  a number one offense.

*

"Cheesecake. I would go into that clubhouse, and there would be guys eating cheesecake. I love a good piece of cheesecake, but I never wanted to play on a cheesecake team, you know what I'm saying? There were a couple guys in that clubhouse, not to name any names, that had a cheesecake fetish. Well, I wanted to play on a polish sausage team, because I'm a grinder. I get out there, get dirty, well I did, and that's how I want my guys to play. We need to play the game the right way, and leave the cheesecake with the women and children. They can also have all the light beer. " - Kevin Seitzer on his time spent with the 1997 Cleveland Indians, and the approach he wants to see from his young players