WASHINGTON — The poor bat girl. Mike Shildt still remembers her. He always empathized with the staffers who make the game go — the clubhouse attendants and the scoreboard operators and the kids chasing foul balls to save the owner a few bucks. He had filled all those roles as a boy.

Now Shildt was playing for the University of North Carolina-Asheville, in the batter’s box at the University of Tennessee, trying desperately to make solid contact off a hard-throwing pitcher for a much bigger program. He knew then that he would never be good enough to play in the pros, because the best he could do was swing late and shoot fouls to his right, endangering the welfare of the bat girl stationed by the dugout.

“She was playing dodge ball,” Shildt said the other day, shaking his head as he pantomimed his old, feeble swing behind the visiting manager’s desk at Nationals Park. “If you can’t hit a good fastball, you ain’t playing. And I realized, in my self-evaluation, that was it.”

Some of the best managers, like Earl Weaver and Joe Maddon, peaked as players in the minors. Others reached the majors with minimal impact; Tommy Lasorda went 0-4 on the mound, and Tony La Russa hit .199.