Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 18, 2015

Calvin, you should’ve hit it right in the teeth!

Snoopy should give him a boot to the butt.

I remember when I was a kid, my friend asked me to play on his little league team, I was all of 11, if even that. But I was tall for my age, nearly 6ft. I never played sports, but they insisted otherwise they would forfeit for lack of players. Well every time I came to bat they would walk me thinking I was a ringer :) They placed me all the way in out field, and boy did I pray the ball would never come my way :) !!!

Be brave. Stare the beast down. Then smack it as hard as you can. …. make sure Hobbes is not in the line of fire.

seven yearfs old …I did not understand baseball. but went out for peewee league at parents urging..my first time at bat..i walk up to the plate…zip strike one…zipl strike two…zip strike three…everybody walks off the field..people get in their cars and go home..i walk jome bewilderd..it is depressing to be the last out of the game….tragic at seven…kill that ball for me calvin..

“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”

Is this how Babe Ruth started?

Little does Calvin realize that he has stumbled upon his true recreational calling; nunchucks…

…then y does it LQQK like u got get?

Bad news for coaches everywhere: not all kids are meant for sports.

I must not fear.Fear is the mind-killer.Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.I will face my fear.I will permit it to pass over me and through me.And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.Only I will remain.

Nice try, Hobbes, but extra strikes don’t even carry forward to the next pitch, never mind the next at-bat/inning. ;)

Shades of Bugs & Elmer.

Coaches don’t care if every kid, any kid – or even YOUR kid – plays sports. The best of them care only about those that do play sports. All the PE teachers and coaches in my experience understood that athletics wasn’t for everyone and that not all kids were talented or inclined in that direction. Their goal was to expose the kids to different types of physical activity in the hope that it would provide an opening to some way of remaining physically active and reasonably fit for a lifetime. They simply wanted their students to TRY, without any expectation that every kid would succeed, excel, enjoy that activity, or care. It beats sitting on your thumbs.

At least it’s not a Killer Tomato going after Calvin…

Once again, I see a certain amount of pathos in Calvin. He never socializes with other kids, not not to play games or anything else.

Kind of continuing my baseball story from yesterday: The next year, my family moved to a different state and I didn’t go out for baseball. But one day, I told a neighborhood kid about my championship team of the year before and he asked me to try out for the team he was on. The coach started me out by pitching “batting practice”. The guys couldn’t hit my pitches, so the coach says “let them hit. This is batting practice”, so I did. Several games later, I hadn’t pitched yet, so I asked the coach why. He says “because they hit you in batting practice.”(!?) I later found out that the kid that was our main pitcher had a VIP father, explaining why I wasn’t pitching. I did sort of get my revenge, though. We made it to the championship game, but the family of the first baseman went on vacation, forcing the coach to play me at first. I made several good plays at first and contributed significantly to the offense, and we won. During the celebration cook-out for the team, a father said, if we had a Most Valuable Player award for the game, I ought to get it, which made me feel pretty darned good. And it was the best kind of revenge, the kind that doesn’t hurt anyone.

I played baseball only once in my life because I have a fear of round objects hurled at my head. In my one time at bat, I never swung the bat at all because I didn’t really know how. And lucky me, I got a ‘walk’. What is that? I thought. Someone grabbed me and actually walked me to first base. And the next kid made the last out — lucky me again!

I don’t see MLB in Calvin’s future

Maybe so.

But at least your friend is actually alive.

xxx

Strike 3! Your out!

I noticed, many of our non-United States readers are not posting comments for this arc.

I miss you, Hobbes the commentator, although I imagine you’re on one of your leaves from GoComics. Still, look forward to your return sometime … hopefully soon.