Growing up in rural Wisconsin, we were required to play baseball. Not by law, mind you, but by our fathers and peer pressure.
This was just for the boys. I can’t speak for the girls who were likely forced to play softball, which actually looked much more violent than baseball. Have you seen these ladies pitch?
As a child and as an adult I do not believe in baseball. By that, I mean I do not believe in ME playing baseball.
But I played nonetheless.
Unlike Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, I played catch with my father. Lots and lots of catch. Probably too much catch. He sometimes became a bit OCD with all the back and forth.
I don’t think he ever played baseball himself, so it’s a mystery where his love of baseball derived. Probably Field of Dreams. The movie, not the book. He didn’t believe in reading fiction.
I played so much catch with my father I’ve considered writing a novel centering around me buying a baseball field in Iowa that I plow under and grow corn in place. I’d sit out there on my porch, watching the corn grow and knowing I didn’t have to play any god damned baseball. No offense if you’re into that kind of thing.
All this baseball stuff began when I was relatively young in a version called tee-ball. I must have been around six years old when I began this tee-ball madness.
To the uninitiated, tee-ball is where you place a baseball on a stationary baseball holder and then whack it off the stand.
Tee-ball was rather enjoyable. Low stakes and not a lot of rabid dads who would chew you out if you missed a catch. Sure, there were a couple of them, but nothing like little league fast pitch.
I have no idea how it happened, but one day tee-ball was over and I was in little league. The Colonial Square Realty team.
And I was scared for my life.
Rightfully so.
By the time I was in the little league big leagues, my eyes had deteriorated so much that a fast moving ball was a bit much for me. Too much Mario Brothers on the Nintendo, just as my mother had warned.
Regardless, I soldiered on and was assigned the position nobody with incredible myopia should be allowed to inhabit:
Right field.
I’m thinking I was around eleven years old at the time. I can’t remember because it’s been four decades.
It was absolutely the most horrific position a jittery, near-sighted, underweight, anxiety-prone little leaguer could be assigned. More than half the damn hits were pop-ups to right field.
My eyes had even become quite sensitive to light, but apparently sunglasses had not been invented yet in the mid-80s. Or at least I was not aware of their existence.
So there I stood, heart palpitating, holding my breath, praying to the Lord Jesus below that the ball would not be hit to me.
But it always was.
Thankfully, after all my catch training with my father, I was actually quite good at catching all those pop flies, but I sure as hell didn’t like it. It was like searching for a white ball in a bright white sky and hoping it didn’t hit you in the face.
I don’t know how many years baseball went on for me. It seemed interminable. Every summer until I was 30 years old? No, that’s just how it felt.
Often, people will put their kids in baseball because it is considered a “safe sport.” Not like tackle football and hockey the tough kids would play.
But that said, I would contend that baseball is anything but a safe sport. This is just from my own personal experience.
One day we were down at Field 6 in Wakanda Park in Menomonie, Wisconsin. That’s in my hometown. Yes, Menomonie’s main park is named Wakanda Park, but alas, not sponsored by Marvel.
Mr. Peterson, our coach and social studies teacher, had me playing the catcher position in practice so that the star pitcher, Steve Schmidt could get some arm time in. That’s what they called it. “Arm-Time.”
He probably selected me to catch because, as I stated above, I was a stellar ball catcher. So there I crouched, waiting for the ball to come into my hands. I even wore the specialized catcher’s mitt.
Thankful, my permanent teeth had not totally come in yet. You might see where this is going.
Just as Steve wound up his pitch, some asshole, probably playing a “prank” (aka a crime) YELLED my name.
I looked to my right.
That’s all I remember for about a minute.
The ball, being pitched at what must have been at least 150 miles per hour slammed into my upper jaw and two of my teeth were no longer present. I had swallowed them.
The thing about being hit in the mouth by a baseball in the mid 80s? Nobody really cared. Heck, I didn’t even tell my parents. I was eleven. A little man. Sure I was missing two teeth, but they had to go anyhow. Win-win?
Luckily, by the time I was around thirteen years old, I was allowed to quit baseball. My father didn’t actually care to go to the games, so he was probably relieved. I mean, who wants to sit on those flat benches in 100 degree heat?
The Intramural Church Softball League Incident of 1992
A few years later when I was but a child of 16, I joined the Church Softball League Of The Greater Menomonie Area. Somebody remembered that I used to play baseball, and being of unsound mind, I said, “Sure, that sounds like fun!”
I actually thought it might be a good time. Which it was.
Until it wasn’t.
One hot, July evening, The Christ Lutheran Cross-Bearers (my team) were playing The St. Joseph’s Demon Slayers. And boy, these people were competitive. Like, really. Seriously. Competitive.
I thought I’d just go and play some nice late evening softball under the tangerine Wisconsin summer skies.
Nope.
This was slow pitch softball, and in Menomonie that was man eat man. And by that I mean woman eat man, because the women on the teams were ruthless, and probably also played fast pitch softball.
After most games of intramural church league softball, I needed to come home and have a shot. Of Ativan. It was nerve wracking.
And then, on one terribly hot evening in mid-July, I was knocked out cold. By a softball! And trust me when I say it, these balls are anything but soft.
Somehow, I made contact with a ball when I was up and got to second base with a good hit. Magic does happen. I don’t remember a whole lot after that.
The next batter was up.
The pitcher lobbed the slow-ball high up into the setting sun.
CRACK!
(Or more likely… thwap!)
Contact.
The ball was a fast ground ball right to the second basewoman.
I decided to take off for third base.
I should’ve stayed put.
Melissa threw the big fat softball, at what I can only believe was at an incredibly high velocity, to the third baser.
I was mid-way between bases when she made the throw.
And then nothing.
Blackness.
A darkness enveloped me.
The softball (once again, not so soft) hit me on the back of the head. We didn’t wear helmets.
My consciousness transcended time and space. I floated above the field, looking down, cursing myself for getting killed playing intramural church-league softball.
As I floated there I considered my life choices up to that point. I could have been home playing Nintendo, but NOOOO… I needed to “get out there into nature.”
A great white light surrounded me. And suddenly, I opened my eyes.
My mouth was full of dirt and I lay face down on the field.
The back of my head throbbed. When I got up, everybody LAUGHED! In the early 90s, people thought head injuries were a real laugh riot. I laughed along, pretending that it was all good.
But it wasn’t.
While I was circling death above the field, I had made certain promises to various deities if they let me return to the earth.
The Buddha appeared, said something in Pali, and allowed me to return to my corporeal form.
And I made a vow: I would never play baseball, or even “soft”ball, again.
And I didn’t.
Or regular baseball.
The End