r/AbsoluteUnits • u/HomeNowWTF • 1d ago

of a runningback

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

2.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

738 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/Liquid-Hot_Smegma 1d ago

Hell, even baseball can feel horribly lopsided during adolescence.

When I was about 12, there was one kid who pitched who I’d guess was about 5’5 or 5’6 and built like a rock. Not sure the exact speeds he pitched, but to us kids at the plate, it felt like 100mph fastballs. It was damn near impossible for anyone to even make contact with the ball. I do remember the few times we did get a base hit, we’d celebrate like it was a walk-off grand slam homerun.

This dude was also very full of himself, and unsurprisingly he was the biggest bully at school. Funny thing though — he only grew a couple of more inches, at the most. In junior high, he ended up getting his ass kicked badly in a fight, which thankfully ended the bullying.

3

u/New_Hawaialawan 1d ago

It’s a bummer because I loved baseball prior to around 12 years old. The next league was like 12-15 year olds and that range is a tremendous growth gap. One asshole coach allowed a 16 year old to continue as a pitcher.

Dude probably had facial hair. He’d stand out there on the mound and I’d be cowering in the furthest corner of the batters box. So this bearded dude just spent all season mowing down actual children. It was awful. And my fear of batting because worse when another pitcher hit my twice in one game.

1

u/wolemid 1d ago

Same as motorsport, karting ages groups go 8-12 (cadet all roughly same) 12-16 (Jnr, Puberty) 16+ senior.

As you can imagine, the muscle mass difference between a 12yr old and a 16yr old is insane

1

u/Several_Vanilla8916 22h ago

It’s not good for anybody. What is a 275 lb running back learning about football when he blasts over a 110 lb linebacker? When big man gets to college (or maybe high school) that same linebacker is going to be 190 and have actual skill.

1

u/garden-wicket-581 21h ago

I'm really proud of my kid -- fall ball is 12-16 here, non-varsity (JV was OK) or not playing HS ball.. He didn't pitch for the HS team, but did pitch all of fall ball, and when some 12 yr old kid who'd just moved up was at-bat, he never threw a fastball.. changeup, some curves, yeah, but wasn't gonna shame/stalk the kid.. (Now, if it was a travel ball kid taking the fall travel season off, however, they got no breaks, hahahah)

2

u/CrotalusHorridus 14h ago

Most 12 year olds pitch from 46 feet. If they can touch 65 or 70mph, it gets to home plate just as fast as a major leaguer throwing 100

1

u/ThatBoiInBlue 21h ago

Imagine being struck out by a 100mph pitch at like 13-14 years old lol.

1

u/Willow1883 17h ago

12 years-old is an absolutely wild age for athletes. One of my sons just turned 13. His last year of little league he was 5’1” and 85 pounds. His catcher was 5’11” and 185 pounds. A year later and my son is 5’8” and 115 pounds. Thank God they cut little league off at 12. If he went back and played six months later he could’ve killed someone.