rekindleme | Sweet Baseball Science

"I made them," the turtle responds, grinning at Yamamoto's reaction. "The bats were easy once I found a lathe someone was willing to let me use. The gloves were a bit harder; I don't work with leather much, but I think they'll work alright. The balls, though . . ."

He takes his duffel bag off his shoulder and upends it over the grass, spilling dozens of what he has taken to thinking of as 'baseball-like objects.' "I know what a baseball looks like, but I don't know what the inside is made of, and I'm not familiar enough with the aerodynamics to replicate it. I think I'm getting close, though." Upon examination, each ball has a number written on it in permanent marker.

"You made them?" It's repeated back not with disbelief, but with a bit of awe and an approving grin. "These are really good! You're pretty talented." Engineering, he had said. It was impressive.

He sets the bat down when Donatello starts on about the balls, and he crouched down next to them, eying them thoughtfully. They looked right, but if he was saying he wasn't sure about them Yamamoto could at least test them out.

He picked up a glove and the first ball, chucking it into the mitt experimentally, frowning slightly.

"Too hard." He wasn't trying to be rude, or even make suggestions, just to offer his opinion. He started on the next and the next, though as he went his opinions seemed to get more and more vague until at the last ball after chucking it into a mitt a few times his only thought was, "not enough oomph." Whatever that meant.

The turtle pulls a notebook and pencil out of his belt and starts scribbling notes as the young man tosses the balls into the glove. He nods as he does, looking up at Yamamoto and making helpful comments like "That one has a wooden core, it was one of my first attempts," and "I varied the stitching on that series," and finally, "Did you try #23 yet? It's similar to that one, but a bit more massive. Should have more oomph to it."

It's always pleasing to work with someone who knows what they're doing, who can understand what Yamamoto is saying without him having to try to elaborate, and who doesn't take his comments to heart. All of these were crafted carefully, and he appreciates them, like he does with anything that took effort.

"23?" He drops the ball back into the duffel bag neatly, hunting around for it, picking it up thoughtfully, fingers running over the stitching. This one already feels far more promising than the others, in a way he can't really articulate, and before he's aware of it, he's winding up and chucking it hard into a spare mitt.

He's quiet for a moment, before he breaks into a big grin and whoops, resting an arm on Donatello's shoulder.

"That one is perfect. I can't believe it only took twenty three tries."

Donatello is one of four teenage brothers. He groks Yamamoto's jive.

The turtle blushes and smiles. "Aw, I'm sure it's not perfect-perfect. I mean, that one is just a porous wooden core wrapped in rubber and hide. Argh, I wish I had a book for this!" he laments, putting his hands on the side of his head in frustration. "I hate having to reinvent the wheel. Or the baseball."

Donatello sighs and pulls a small cobbled-together device with a grille on one side and a computer screen on the other from his belt. "Since you think that one's decent, I don't suppose you know how fast your fastball generally is?"

"There's a library here right? Is it filled with anything helpful?" It might be a useless question to ask, since he's pretty sure if there was a library here that Donatello would have made that one of the first places to go. He reminds him of Gokudera in a way, if Gokudera was way less angry and more open to baseball.

"But you did a great job! It's really good!"

He headed over to peer curiously at the newest device the Donatello pulled out, scratching his cheek thoughtfully. "Ah, mid to high 90s?" It might be better now since he'd gotten more intense training, but he hadn't had time to really take stock of it.

"There is, and if it has any books on baseball, I wasn't able to find them. They don't exactly use the Dewey decimal system here."

Th turtle sets his duffel bag down next to the pile of balls. "Thanks. I did my best!"

He brandishes the device, holding it out at arm's length. "This is a radar gun. I think I've got it calibrated. I tested it dropping weights from a known height. Of course my math is only valid if this planet has the same gravity as Earth, but we're not bouncing around or being crushed by the air, so it should be a decent approximation." Physics! "Uh, anyway, I figure if you can throw that ball as fast as you normally can, that'll mean it's a good baseball." He grins, taking up station under a tree and fiddling with some knobs on the side of the thing and sticking a loose wire back into place.

"Just let 'er rip whenever you're ready!" he calls.

"Ah." Most of the explanation went over his head, but Yamamoto was sure he got the gist of it. Basically that he needed to pitch a few times to help out Donatello, which he didn't mind.

He propped up another mitt to pitch into, picking up the trusty #23, getting into his stance and throwing the ball with all of his might. The ball felt right in his hand, and the grass beneath him wasn't treacherous. The conditions were pretty ideal, and Yamamoto could probably pitch happily all day, but that probably wasn't necessary for Donatello to calibrate.

Donnie keeps a close eye on Yamamoto's form as he pitches. He plans to try it himself, after all! The turtle pans the radar gun to track the ball, grinning as it smacks into the mitt. "Ninety-eight mph!" he calls over. "Good arm! Mind doing a couple more throws?"

"Haha of course!" He winds up again, focused solely on pitching for a few moments before he remembers that there are in fact, other people here. And one of them was the person who made all this equipment.

"Do you want to try?" He'll chuck another one because Donatello did say to do a few more throws, but he'll pause before pitching another one, tossing the ball leisurely.

"Sure!" Donnie responds, getting up from his post under the tree and tucking the radar back into his belt as he takes the ball from Yamamoto. There's a look of intense concentration on his face as he tries to imitate the other's stance and pitches the ball. It doesn't go anywhere near ninety miles per hour, but it does land near the mitt.

"How was that?" he asks as he trots over the retrieve the ball. "Any tips?" Probably no-one has ever played pitching coach to someone with three-fingered scaly hands before.

Yamamoto watches in interest as Donatello pitches, pretty impressed with his accuracy. Everyone has to start somewhere, after all.

"That was pretty good! Is pitching part of ninja training?" He joked, before rubbing the back of his head thoughtfully. He wasn't very good at explaining something, but he could at least show him. "Hmmm... Try gripping it like this." He tweaked the other guy's fingers thoughtfully, nodding in approval. "It might help." He hadn't coached anyone with three fingers, but it could become a valuable asset, just like how some south paws turned out to be great pitchers.

"No, but it gives you a pretty good sense of your body. My brothers and I have played catch before, but we've never really had room to play baseball."

"So, put my fingers like this?" Don asks, letting Yamamoto move his digits. "How's my stance? Decent?" he asks, trying a pitching pose again and doing a few mock-throws.

"Did you guys get to play any sports?" While baseball would always be his favorite and only sport, it did require a lot of space. He wondered if they had had time to play games in between all the ninja training.

He nodded approvingly as Donatello slid into his stance. "Did you want to see how fast you were pitching?"

They tended to have enough free time to not go insane. Though some always seemed to have more free time than others, Michelangelo.

"Well, we sort of played hockey once? And we go freerunning on the rooftops. Mikey's got his skateboard, Raph's got his rollerblades, Leo has his scooter, and I've got a bike if that counts. And we play Stealth Master, which is basically Ninja Hide and Seek." Don gives an embarassed grin. "Between not being allowed up on the surface much and Master Splinter telling us to stop playing ball in the lair, I guess we haven't played too many actual sports." You only have to break one priceless Ming dynasty tea set before dad gets fed up.

He pulls the makeshift radar gun from his belt. "Sure! Just hold it by the handle here, and lemme see, if you stand over there then I should set the range dial like so . . . and just keep it trained on the ball," he says, handing the device to Yamamoto.

"Freerunning?" It sounded just physical and challenging enough to catch Yamamoto's interest, and he decided it was probably the wiser choice between that and Ninja Hide and Seek. "Though we should change that! Any sports that you've always wanted to play?" While baseball would always be his first love, it didn't mean he didn't appreciate other sports, even though he probably would never join the boxing club much to Ryohei-senpai's displeasure.

He took the device carefully, nodding to let Donatello know he understood the instructions before trotting over to where Donatello had indicated. He waved, grinning. "Ready when you are!"

"Also known as parkour. We basically run around on the rooftops, bouncing off fire escapes, tiptoeing over clotheslines at high speed, that sort of thing. Well, since you mention it, I have always like the idea of baseball. It's slower paced, and I've been given to understand there's a lot of mind games with the batter, the pitcher, and the catcher? Plus I'm pretty good at swinging a stick." Donnie grins. "But I'm not really all that familiar with the rules and stuff. I've always got some kind of project going on, and then there's evil ninjas trying to kill us."

He retakes his pitching stance, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and goes through the motions a couple times before actually releasing the ball. Which sails over the mitt and actually skips over the pond a couple times before splashing under the water and then bobbing up to the surface. Donatello looks wide-eyed at his hand, then at the leaves on a tree (to see which direction the wind is blowing, of course), then out at the ball bobbing on the pond before looking over at Yamamoto.

"So was that better or worse?" Baseballs are harder to aim than shuriken, it's turning out.

"Haha it sounds like fun! Could you teach me how?" It never hurt to be quick on your feet and able to master your environment. Yamamoto could have definitely used that sort of skill in a few of his fights.

He brightened when talking about his beloved sport, his grin wide and eager. "Yeah! You have to be able to read your opponent and their skills to know how well they might react to a pitch or if you can fool them or not. Usually pitchers and catchers are the best people on the team because they have to make those kind of calls. A lot rides on them."

He waved his hand slightly at the mention of rules. "We can go over those later. What evil ninjas?" That was clearly more interesting and pressing.

He couldn't help but laugh at Donatello's surprised look, trying to look reassuring. "Ah, well... Better when it came to power but when it comes to aim..."

"Well, it's not really one skill. I mean, you have to be able to climb, run, jump. You need good balance and . . . just great control of your body, basically. I guess we could see if the gym here has a rock wall. Or an obstacle course. Or maybe a bunch of poles to balance on?" Donatello really has no idea how he'd teach freerunning. He never really learned it. He was fifteen years old before he ever spent any length of time above ground, and by that time he'd advanced far enough in his ninja training that it seemed silly not to show off with his brothers as they moved around the city.

"Oh, well, they're called the Foot Clan. Their leader, Oroku Saki, a.k.a. The Shredder, murdered our adopted father's master, Hamato Yoshi. We butt heads with them on a pretty regular basis." There's more but it's a long story involving aliens.

Donatello grins and shrugs. "Yeah, I guess my aim needs work," he admits, diving into the pond to retrieve the wayward ball.

If that was supposed to deter Yamamoto, it had the opposite effect. He had the best reflexes in the Vongola family and was one of the most athletic, so any test of that sounded like a good challenge. "Haha I'll keep my eyes open. This city seems to have a lot."

Yamamoto whistled at the explanation, glancing over at Donatello curiously. "Why did he murder him?"

Perhaps it was a touchy topic, but Donatello had seemed pretty forthcoming about it.

Donnie frowns. "It's a very long, weird story that involves aliens crashing on Earth in medieval Japan. I'm not sure I want to get into the whole thing right now. The short version is, Master Yoshi was protecting some people and wouldn't give up information about them to the Shredder."

The turtle swims out to the ball, swims half-way back to shore, tosses it to Yamamoto, then swims the rest of the way and climbs out.

"Haha maybe some other time then." It sounded like an interesting story, but he wasn't going to press especially since most likely it would take a while for him to understand it thoroughly.

He caught the ball easily enough, trotting over to show him the speed of it. "You did pretty well! I'm sure with a bit of practice you can get into the 90s easily."

It's a very interesting story, but it takes a long time to tell it.

Don looks at the readout on the radar gun and smiles. "Hey, not bad. That's comparable to how fast I can throw a shuriken. So, any pointers on aiming?"

It's a bit difficult for Yamamoto to give pointers, because honestly most things that are physical are easy for him. He sees it once and he learns it. It probably doesn't help that his make up and Donatello's are slightly different, but the least he can do is try to give him tips considering he's done so much work.

"Well you kind of let you arm fwish and snap. And don't let your eyes leave the target." He's going through the motions of pitching as if that will help with the totally nonsensical explanation he's giving.

"Uh-huh," Donnie responds, reaching over his shoulder to wring water out of the dangling tails of his mask. "And at what point during that fwish and snap motion should I release the ball?"

"Mid-snap." Yamamoto replied quickly, going through the motion again, slowly, as if he's releasing an imaginary ball. "Though we can try different pitches too, if you're interested? Some of them might be easier to get the hang of." He looked really excited at the thought, but he hadn't expected to be playing baseball with someone who was pretty open to it so soon.

"Ooooh, okay." Donatello says, practicing the motions a few more times himself before finally releasing the ball to have it smack into the mitt. He smiles. "Definitely not as fast as your pitch, but at least it was on target."

The turtle's face positively lights up at Yamamoto's suggestion. "Different pitches? Sure! And secret signals and keeping track of everyone's stats and deep strategy!" So they're both pretty excited.

"Haha good job! I'm sure you'll catch up in no time." Both his pitching and ability to understand his vague instructions are impressive, and Yamamoto can't help but smile, pleased that Donatello seemed to be catching on pretty quick.

He was glad that Donatello seemed to be agreeable to other pitches, grabbing the ball and heading back to him. "A curveball might be the best pitch for you, since you have a unique grip. You get in the same form but instead of fwishing you want to duwap." Luckily, he's going through the motions as he says this, chucking the ball hard into the mitt. "We can start with simple signs, then start to develop more complicated ones. It'd be fun if we could come up with different strategies too..."

Really anything baseball related he was all for, and he was interested in what sort of strategies Donatello could come up with.

Donnie watches Yamamoto's body very closely as he pitches, since the young man's verbal explanations are . . . less than helpful.

He retrieves the ball from the mitt, and attempts to recreate the curveball, with mixed results. The ball definitely curves, but it misses the mitt. "We're gonna have to come up with some unique signs if I'm going to be doing them," he says, smiling and holding up his three beefy fingers.

"Of course, if I do end up playing catcher, I won't need any armor except for the face mask," he adds, rapping his knuckles on his plastron.

"Haha we can incorporate a lot of different gestures. We used to had a few on my team that were just shoulder brushes or adjusting your equipment." He's not too worried about it, and making new gestures could be pretty fun. He watched idly as Donatello pitched, the motion pretty spot on, but he would just need a bit of practice.

Yamamoto grinned at the convenient armor, tilting his head to the side in amusement. "It sounds like you're pretty set on being a catcher, so you should have that position. But it's one of the most important, so I hope you're up to the task." The words are mild, more perfunctory than anything. Donatello seems to have a good head on his shoulders and he seems to be a pretty quick learner. He'd probably make a pretty good catcher.

"Oh, okay! I thought it was all, like, making V-signs with the fingers and stuff, but it's actually a whole secret code? Cool!"

Don waves a hand in front of himself in a negating gesture. "Heheh, I'm not really set on anything, I don't think I know enough about the sport to know what position I'd be best in. It just seems like it'd be fun to play."

"For calling pitches it usually is, but it'd be harder to crack if we don't rely solely on those. And it'll be more fun to come up with codes." Just at the idea Yamamoto is beaming enthusiastically.

At Donatello's next words he settled down a little, shifting on his feet thoughtfully. "Fair enough. Would you want to try batting?"

Don nods his agreement. "Codes are pretty great. It'll be useful to have one around here."

He smiles as he stoops to pick up a bat, twirling it in his hand. "I'm not going to lie, I'm probably going to be quite a bit better at batting than I am at pitching. I've had some practice with the basic skillset." Which is to say he regularly manipulates a long stick to beat multiple opponents into unconsciousness.

"So tell me about the pros and cons of wooden versus aluminum bats. I could make some aluminum ones if we needed them, but it'd take longer than wood."

Making a code might be helpful for other activities here, but Yamamoto can't say for sure. They might still be under surveillance, in which case any code they come up with could be compromised by those who brought them here.

"Oh? I look forward to seeing you in action then." Of the two, pitching is usually more strenuous on the body, but it's still not easy to hit a ball, especially one that's very fast.

"You've done your homework." Yamamoto's impressed, his grin widening. "Aluminum bats are easier to swing faster, tend to hit the ball farther, and don't break so they're preferred over wooden, but most major leagues still use wooden ones. Since we're not that serious, we could stick with aluminum. But if it's not too much trouble could you make one wooden one?"

Donatello can block shuriken with his bo staff. Hitting a target as big as a baseball with something as wide as a bat should be easy. Right?

"I always do my homework!" he says, smiling. "Well, I've already made a few wooden ones. Like I said, they're easy, you just need a lathe and some time. Aluminum would be harder to do."

The turtle gets into a batting stance approximating what he's seen on TV, taking a few practice swings. "How's my form?"

"Ah, the aluminum ones would last longer, so that would be good. How do you make them? Can I help?" Yamamoto doesn't like having someone else do all the hard labor if he can assist in any way.

He nods approvingly at Donatello's practice swings, going to retrieve one of the baseballs. "You feel up to batting practice?" Someone should probably warn him Yamamoto doesn't know the meaning of holding back when it comes to pitching...

"Well, I guess I'd start with aluminum tubing and force it into shape somehow? I'd probably need some machinery to get it bat-shaped, though," he says, rubbing his chin, bat resting against his leg.

Donatello smiles wickedly as he retakes his batting stance and taps the ground twice with the end of the bat. "Pitch one right over the plate, Yamamoto!"

Sweet Baseball Science

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