There's only so much a local bar can do when your favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, suffers a three-game sweep by the arch-nemesis New York Yankees.
Luckily, one watering hole in Tucson can help you out a little more in such situations.
"People come out to bat," Home Plate Sports Pub owner Steve Anselmo said. "That's our niche."
When you walk into Home Plate Sports Pub, you look around and it seems like a typical East Side bar. There's tons of flat-screen TVs on the wall, neon signs, and people from their 20s to 60s sitting at booths and stools.
Out back, though, there are six batting cages, several aluminum baseball bats and plastic batting helmets of various sizes. Welcome to therapy.
The batting cages vary, from softball lobs to pro baseball speeds. For 50 cents, all but one of the pitching machines will throw you 12 balls. The second-hardest machine ("Pony League") will only take four quarters but gives you 24 pitches ("We just can't get it to throw 12," Anselmo said.)
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Feeling rusty, we started at "Slow Pitch Softball" and worked up. On the first cage, our hit-to-pitch ratio was 11-to-12.
Confident, we ambled down the line of cages, each pitching machine increasing in difficulty and our hit-count likewise dropping significantly (11-to-24 at "Pony League.")
There were some adjustments made (bat switched, collared shirt removed, nursing of new blisters from not using a batting glove), but by the time we got to the "Nolan Ryan" 92 mph fast-pitch cage, well, the machine threw a no-hitter. Twice.
It's good to know after suffering such embarrassment from a cold, calculating, silent, mechanical arm, you can walk back into Home Plate and still feel comfortable.
"It's a friendly, neighborhood place," said pool-playing patron Jim Organist, 67.
Home Plate has its share of regulars like Bruce Boyd, 64, who's been coming to the bar for 20 years. Anselmo has owned the bar with his business partner, Rick James, for only three years, but Home Plate has been around since 1972.
Boyd said he has seen owners come and go, but he enjoys the place for sports, such as Sunday football, and the people.
"You make friends every night," he said.
Like most bars, the patrons get younger as the day grows older, but there's plenty to do besides hit baseballs. In Home Plate's back room, there are two pool tables, four dart boards, video games, TVs and a loaded jukebox.
There's also a full kitchen serving bar fare like pizza, burgers and fish and chips.
Like Anselmo says, though, it's the batting cages that really sets the place apart.
"Figured you weren't a baseball player," 12-year veteran Home Plate bartender Cheryl Osburn remarked as we were leaving. "I saw you swinging."
Just a fan, ma'am, just a fan.
Home Plate Sports Pub
• Where: 4880 E. 22nd St.
• When: 10 a.m.-2 a.m. daily.
• Happy Hour: 3-7 p.m. Monday through Friday, $2 domestic draughts and wells, $5 domestic pitchers, free pizza from 4 to 6 p.m.
