Daily Free Press staffer burned by BU’s best hurlers

Choosing my weapon from the artillery scattered on the ground in front of the dugout and pulling over my ears the biggest helmet I could find, I strode toward the plate with the confidence of a kindergartener shyly boarding the bus on his first day of school.

In the few days before, I’d been overflowing with optimism, my macho mojo not allowing me to believe anything but that I would step into the batter’s box and be capable of holding my own against one of the Northeast’s premier pitchers. However, as it came time to put up or shut up, little more than a quivering question could escape my lips.

‘So, what do you think are the chances I’ll actually make contact?’ I turned and asked the catcher while digging into the batter’s box with a Nomar-like nervousness.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ she replied, letting her skeptical shrug and cynical smile speak much louder through her mask.

After reading about its utter dominance of hitters throughout America East, I wanted to see for myself just how tough it is to hit against the Boston University softball team’s pitching staff. Led by sophomore Julie Henneke, freshman Erin McDonald and senior Tiffany Finateri, the Terriers have won 16 of their last 17 games, allowing a paltry solo run per game in the stretch.

In the last three weeks, they’ve notched nine shutouts – including six in a row at one point – on the way to 15-1 record within the confines of the conference. An all-league selection last season, Henneke has emerged as the ace of the staff, registering a 1.59 ERA, striking out nearly a batter an inning and tying McDonald for the team lead with 11 wins.

But both Henneke and McDonald have been fighting minor injuries, so head coach Amy Hayes rested them Wednesday in preparation for yesterday’s home doubleheader against the University of Rhode Island.

That left Finateri to face me, and she accepted the challenge. (Perhaps ‘opportunity’ would be a more accurate description than a ‘challenge.’) The senior from Sin City may have thrown the fewest innings of the Terrier trio, but she is by no means a slouch in the circle. Last year she finished the season with a 1.45 ERA, earning a spot on the America East second team.

This season she has the second-best ERA on the team (2.43) and though she’s 5-5, she’s given up three runs or fewer in three of those losses. Eliminate an 8-0 early season loss to Louisiana-Lafayette in her season debut, and her ERA is a miniscule 1.68. Not to mention that opponents are batting just .223 against her.

Luckily I didn’t dissect these numbers before heading to the BU Softball Field. Watching Finateri’s warmup tosses was enough to crush any semblance of confidence I’d been carrying with me.

I had made predictions on how many balls I’d hit, telling people that if I was given six at-bats, I could put the ball into play at least four times. As she wound up and hummed her final prep pitch to catcher Christy King, I blinked and the ball was by me.

‘I’m done,’ I thought to myself, wearing what I’m certain was a transparent look of uncertain angst through the slight grin smacked across my face.

Finally we were ready. Me and Finny. Me, appropriately named by my parents for a situation like this, and Finateri, an average-sized 21-year-old transformed into a giant Goliath who hurled her stones from her hip.

A full team took the field, while Hayes and the extras waited near the third-base dugout, singing their encouraging songs like I was one of their own.

The first pitch was a fastball, riding high as it bore in toward my hands. Promised 10 tries and ready to hack away, I thought about offering at it but stopped, instead check-swinging the ball into foul territory behind me.

I took the next two pitches – one low, called a ball, and one that caught the outside corner. Sitting at 1-2, I had one thing on my mind: don’t strike out. Pop out, fly out, ground out, foul out or even feign a deathly illness and bow out, but at all costs, do not strike out. For one pitch I managed, and spoiled a fastball by squirting a ball into foul ground down the first-base line.

But then it happened. Geared up for the heater, I thought I had something hittable headed right down Broadway. Loading my hands and firing forward, I thought this was it. I thought I was going to get a hit and so I started to swing.

Then I noticed the ball was only about halfway to home plate.

Quickly I tried to slow myself down, breaking my rhythm and trying to stall my swing as the bat broke staccato through the hitting zone. Flailing helplessly, I completely missed and went down on strikes.

If the Terriers couldn’t see that I was blushing, it was only because my downtrodden face had dissolved itself into my bright scarlet headwear. I’d only struck out once in 37 at-bats for the BU club team last fall. I’d hit better than .500 for my summer men’s baseball team. I’d thought I was a pretty good hitter.

But on the soft dirt of the softball field, I was just another hapless victim. Assistant coach Shawn Rychcik, a former baseball player at Gannon University, pointed out to me, Finateri was throwing her fastball at about 60 miles per hour, probably one or two MPHs slower than she throws in game action. Still, protracted from softball’s 40 feet between the mound and the plate to the 60 feet six inches of baseball, that means that Finateri’s fastball is the hardball equivalent to about 91 miles per hour.

That leaves only about 45 one-hundredths of a second for a softball to get from the pitcher’s hand to the catcher’s mitt. My timing was better after I took the first pitch of my second at-bat, and so I smashed a dribbler meekly to third. It wasn’t much, but it was contact.

It was a start, and that was enough to get me going. On the next pitch, Finateri left a fat fastball belt-high on the outer half of the plate and I smacked it toward the warning track in right. It got over the outfielder before bouncing up against the fence and bringing a big, dimply smile to my once-mortified mug.

That was it, and I finished the afternoon 1-for-3. Finateri had set me down with a strikeout, but having seen what she and her teammates could do first-hand, I picked up an appreciation for just how talented these Terriers are.

I walked away with a satisfying smirk, fit for the likes of a wide-eyed kindergartener who stepped unsurely into school and left having learned something.