The Whitman College Magazine Online: Alumni

Recapturing the glory days --- in bifocals

“I was about to discover that it can be dangerous to try to recapture your youth.”

Former Whitman College varsity baseball pitcher Bill Nash, ’77, had decided to play in the annual Whitman College alumni-student baseball game during Homecoming weekend this year. Later, in an October 18 column for the California Ventura County Star, he described the experience. “It had been 24 years since I last pitched at the college level. My team shirt was older than anyone I’d be pitching to. . . .

“Our team was a makeshift group of alumni spanning four decades of graduates. I wasn’t the oldest, but I was among the grayest.

“For the record, baseball is a much different game when played in bifocals. This became abundantly clear the first time I stepped up to the plate.

I remember seeing the pitcher release the ball, but the next time I saw it was when the catcher threw it back. . . .
“Fortunately the time soon arrived for me to pitch. I took the mound in the bottom of the third and promptly threw my first pitch in the dirt.”

After that, Nash redeemed himself as a pitcher, he claims, and in spite of the pain that set in later, acknowledges that the game “was a great experience.”

“I might even do it again next year — if I can lift my arm by then.”

Events

Recapturing the glory days --- in bifocals

Bill Nash and fellow members of the class of 1977 will celebrate their 25th reunion at Homecoming next September.

Bill Nash, '77, is at far right in this photo of the Homecoming alumni baseball team.

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