The most basic sports move I could never do

A good pop-up slide; my great white buffalo.

Something I was never able to get right in little league and I’m confident in saying it will never happen. I could hire a personal slide coach, work on it for a year, and still not be able to do it. And it’s legitimately the easiest damn thing for a baseball player. More players struggle with separating frozen hamburger patties or flying drones than a nice, smooth, feet first pop-up slide. Even Billy Butler KINDA did one.

I had this realization back in little league so I made the decision to go head first in my next opportunity. Luckily that opportunity presented itself in the next game at home plate. I came in hot, committed to the slide, laid out like there was a wet rain tarp laid out in front of me, and stopped all forward movement once impact was made. Well, not all forward movement. My feet kept the momentum going and the bottom of my feet tapped the top of my head; a splendid scorpion tale.

I vividly remember spitting the dirt out of my mouth and hearing the laughter of the crowd. I got to my knees and crawled to the plate on hands and knees humbled. What’s worse is that there was no play at the plate, so I was both the asshole that slides head-first (a real gloree boy) and also the asshole that slides head-first when it isn’t required. What an asshole.

And believe it or not, there are other things that I will never do that are among the most basic things that professional athletes do. If you listen to the Adam Carolla Show, you might’ve heard him talk about the way Jerry Porter got up off the ground.

You’ll see an example of that around the 45 second mark. I will never be able to do that and that’s his default way of getting off the ground. Both of my knees just snapped watching that video.

Throw out some more examples of the basic elements of sports that you will never accomplish.