About an hour before game time, Mid-Missouri third baseman Greg Buscher emerged from the Mavericks’ dugout on the third-base side of Taylor Stadium with a bat in his hands.
He began to saunter toward foul ground in left field to greet some teammates. As he did this, he brought the bat behind his head and twisted his torso back-and-forth, stretching his bulky 6-foot, 220- pound frame.
Buscher quickly stopped before he reached Bub Bergstrom and Thomas Bowker, bending over to touch the piece of wood to his toes and give his legs a brief workout.
What he did next seemed atypical of a power-hitting infielder.
After greeting Bergstrom, the team’s speedy center fielder, with a high-five, Buscher dropped the bat and got into a crouch as though he were leading off a base. Bergstrom did the same.
Facing each other, both shuffled their feet for a few paces, then began to sprint toward an imaginary destination.
It seemed logical that the speedy outfielder was giving tips to the third baseman since he weighed about 40 pounds less.
Still, Buscher might have had some advice of his own. His two career stolen bases (in three attempts) were two more than Bergstrom had. Wednesday’s season-opener was Bergstrom’s first professional game.
Buscher did show some surprise quickness in the top of the first inning Thursday in the Mavericks’ 7-2 loss to the River City Rascals.
Leadoff hitter David Arnold tried to bunt for a single. Arnold placed the ball perfectly down the third baseline and began to scurry down to first. Buscher darted to the ball, scooped it up with his bare right hand, and fired to first baseman Thomari Story-Harden for the out.
But speed, both in the field and on the base paths, has never been regarded as one of Buscher’s strengths.
In 2002 he played in Pulaski, Va., for a Texas Rangers’ rookie league team that celebrated big waistlines. Players weighing 230 pounds or more qualified to be members of the Fat Boys Club, or FBC.
Buscher managed to watch his weight just enough to keep from becoming a club member, though some teammates felt he was barely past the cusp.
“They always wanted me to be on it,” he said. “They always said I was a guy that slipped in it, but I never was.”
That season was almost Buscher’s last in baseball. He was 20 years old at the time and had fallen upon the first major slump of his baseball career, which he began at age 4. After one particularly frustrating game that
June (he struck out several times), Buscher approached Pulaski manager Pedro Lopez about quitting.
Lopez was brief in his remarks. He convinced Buscher of his love for the game and told him that one slump couldn’t break him.
“He just told me I was a young guy,” Buscher said.
“I’m going to come back out tomorrow and go hard, just like he told me.”
Buscher said he will heed Lopez’s advice after Thursday night’s game. He twice left two men stranded with two out.
He also looked foolish in the top of the ninth when catcher Matt Oakes started to throw the ball around the horn after a strikeout.
The ball came in low and bounded off Buscher’s glove and into left field.
“It bounced in the dirt and I just missed it,” Buscher said.
His luck was no better in the bottom half, when a ground ball off the bat of Bowker hit him while he was running toward second. Buscher was called out on the play.
Thursday was 100.1 FM “The Buzz” Beer Night, where a 22-ounce cup of beer cost $2. A group of stadium beer vendors estimated that they would sell 15-20 kegs of beer Thursday night, as compared to the usual five-keg average.
Fans’ giddiness from the alcohol might just have made the Mavericks’ play look better. They lost by five runs or more for the second straight night.
After the game, Mavericks manager Jim Gentile said it was too soon to panic.
“If we lose ten in a row, then we’ll start worrying,” he said. “We’ll come back.”