Most men can look back on their lives and identify several male figures who have helped shape them with wisdom, experience, or fatherly advice. This is not a story about one of those male figures.

When I was in high school in the late 1990s, a time machine from the ’70s landed in my hometown and out popped Gary.

Like most wildlife in a scary, new environment, Gary had to find a place to nest. So, on the outskirts of the outskirts of town, Gary did the manliest thing possible and leased a warehouse in a row of identically unidentifiable warehouses.

My high school baseball coach told us about a new batting cage opening up on the “other” side of town, which was perfect because that’s where I lived. Baseball was everything to me, so it was like Disneyland was being built in my backyard.

I walked in one day, and there he was.

Gary was the kind of guy who’d try to dislodge your arm every time he’d shake hands with you. He had forearms like a bastard chimpanzee from hitting baseballs all day and only God knows what else. I really had to work on my grip.

He wore short, nylon coaching shorts that were barely street legal, and he had disco porn hair that looked like an actual batting helmet.

I visited the cage a couple times a week for three years and never saw this guy’s car. He was one of a kind.

I hit so much that I was finally able to outgrip his handshake. I remember the crazed look in his eyes when I nearly crushed all of his fingers. He laughed like a madman and yelled, “Did you lose your girlfriend?”

He had a lot of lines like that that he just loved to say. He’d fart in the middle of a sentence and say, “Better call the exterminator. We got them barking spiders again,” and then he’d laugh like an idiot.

I still remember how his impossibly long cigarette ash would crash to the floor when he made contact with the first pitch. Sometimes, he’d get a little cocky and overswing, sending him to the ground in a heap. He’d pop back up and act like it was all part of the “lesson.”

Gary never talked about his family, and I think the batting cage was really the place he used to hide from them … well, there and Hooters. The only thing Gary loved more than baseball was boobies.

The batting cage never appeared to be very lucrative, but he sure spent a lot of money on wings. Gary gave me free tokens when I didn’t have money, and I’d give him someone to talk to. I took advantage of this at times, and so did a lot of other players.

Looking back, I wish I had been old enough to give him more money or even just talked with him some more.

I went back home last year and thought I’d stop by and hit a few, maybe overpay for some tokens and compare forearms with him.

When I drove up and realized that the batting cage was now nothing more than an abandoned warehouse, I was hit with a surprising sadness. It wasn’t surprising that the business failed, but that the place where I spent so much time working on the game I love was gone.

I’m sure Gary is just fine. Guys like him just adapt and survive. He’s probably driving down the road right now, smoking cigarettes and cursing at a Lady Gaga song on the radio.