What baseball cost me.
Mar 19, 2023 03:00:57 #
I was a sophomore or junior in High School and since I had to drop out of playing football due to having pneumonia that fall, I was determined to be a regular on our baseball team.
I played third base and was pretty good at putting runners out who tried to steal home.
One afternoon, getting ready for practice, I happened to be playing on first base, since someone else had temporarily taken over third base.
All of a sudden, the batter hit a line drive right down the baseline toward me. Not thinking, not thinking at all I tried to reach out and grab the ball as it came by me. Now I am ambidextrous, and almost equally capable with either hand. Wrong hand!
It really smacked me! Well, this act of trying to catch a line drive with a bare hand ended my baseball career!
I didn’t seek any medical attention. I don’t know if there was anything either a doctor or nurse could have done. There was a large, puffy black and blue knot that arose in the palm of my right hand. Now, since I write left-handed, I didn’t seek any medical attention at first. But eventually it was necessary and so Dad takes me to Fort Worth to a surgeon specialist who diagnosed my problem as having developed a hemangioma, or a rupture of the veins and arteries in my hand. You could take my pulse rate in the palm of my right hand.
I had surgery there eventually, and recovery was uneventful. I do have to go to Fort Worth on several trips solo for the doctor to visit his work. The only problem years later, when I was probably 25 years of age was the blood pressure measurement came back. Since I was now a pharmaceutical salesman, I had constant contact with doctors I called upon. One noticed this in my right hand and suggested that I visit a specialist.
So, I did and their result was another surgery to untangle the veins and arteries and allow them to be in their normal place. The scar from this reached all the way from the base of my index finger down past the base or area of my thumb.
During this time I began to learn to play tennis left-handed just for exercise. I never went out for any other high school sport.
Since I discovered that there was a school full of girls, I was having as much fun playing the field and dating different ones as when I was going out for football or baseball. You just never know what may happen or happen, you just play the card you are dealt. I am sure that was probably the best course.
In college, my roommate was a friend I had made long before grade school. He had lettered in football as a center and was selected as a member of the district’s center. He went out for football at Texas A. & M. and finally quit.
He said he was only a member of about the ninth Aggie team and didn’t think he would ever advance enough to play in a game.
He discovered as I had already discovered, there are other activities that are just as much fun, and much less painful than playing football. Please excuse the red print in those two paragraphs. I didn’t know how to change them back to black. Just Sayin…RJS
I played third base and was pretty good at putting runners out who tried to steal home.
One afternoon, getting ready for practice, I happened to be playing on first base, since someone else had temporarily taken over third base.
All of a sudden, the batter hit a line drive right down the baseline toward me. Not thinking, not thinking at all I tried to reach out and grab the ball as it came by me. Now I am ambidextrous, and almost equally capable with either hand. Wrong hand!
It really smacked me! Well, this act of trying to catch a line drive with a bare hand ended my baseball career!
I didn’t seek any medical attention. I don’t know if there was anything either a doctor or nurse could have done. There was a large, puffy black and blue knot that arose in the palm of my right hand. Now, since I write left-handed, I didn’t seek any medical attention at first. But eventually it was necessary and so Dad takes me to Fort Worth to a surgeon specialist who diagnosed my problem as having developed a hemangioma, or a rupture of the veins and arteries in my hand. You could take my pulse rate in the palm of my right hand.
I had surgery there eventually, and recovery was uneventful. I do have to go to Fort Worth on several trips solo for the doctor to visit his work. The only problem years later, when I was probably 25 years of age was the blood pressure measurement came back. Since I was now a pharmaceutical salesman, I had constant contact with doctors I called upon. One noticed this in my right hand and suggested that I visit a specialist.
So, I did and their result was another surgery to untangle the veins and arteries and allow them to be in their normal place. The scar from this reached all the way from the base of my index finger down past the base or area of my thumb.
During this time I began to learn to play tennis left-handed just for exercise. I never went out for any other high school sport.
Since I discovered that there was a school full of girls, I was having as much fun playing the field and dating different ones as when I was going out for football or baseball. You just never know what may happen or happen, you just play the card you are dealt. I am sure that was probably the best course.
In college, my roommate was a friend I had made long before grade school. He had lettered in football as a center and was selected as a member of the district’s center. He went out for football at Texas A. & M. and finally quit.
He said he was only a member of about the ninth Aggie team and didn’t think he would ever advance enough to play in a game.
He discovered as I had already discovered, there are other activities that are just as much fun, and much less painful than playing football. Please excuse the red print in those two paragraphs. I didn’t know how to change them back to black. Just Sayin…RJS
Mar 19, 2023 08:30:25 #
Mar 19, 2023 11:40:52 #
Another good one Robert. Didn't see any red print . Must of fixed its self.
Mar 19, 2023 14:10:44 #
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