Eye On The Ball, Sport...

One of the phrases I've been hearing ever since I was a wee tyke. Up until I was about, oh, for the sake of simplicity let's say 15, I was WAY into baseball. I'd been playing the game since I was old enough to walk. At that time, my dad's glove was large enough for me to play hide and seek in. Okay, maybe a toe would stick out, but the point stands. But I digress...

It was my senior year in Little League. By Senior, I do not mean a year away from graduation, nor do I mean ridiculous hats, lambskin diplomas, and weeping grandparents in the audience...okay, maybe the grandparents part...and the ridiculous hats. I was a 15 year old, long-haired kid, and it was almost game time. The sun was shining brilliantly in the sky, and the hot dogs were grilling. This is important to the story, so note it. The beautiful smell of baseball dust and never-been-trimmed outfield grass filled the normally horse-crap smelling Norco air. We were taking fly balls in the outfield, because as you all know, catchers need to prepare for the common event of a fly ball.

I step out to center field and prepare for my third catch. I was currently two for two, although admittedly, it was only due to my teammates chanting an almost operatic chorus of "LEFT, LEFT!!!!" that I was able to find that stinkin' sphere. Our coach throws the ball up and hits it, and I swear on my unborn kids, Luke and Leia, that I had never seen a ball hit so damn high. That ball shot up like a teenager's libido after seeing his first Playboy article. For a moment, I just stood there gawking at the sky like a moron, pondering the legitimacy of the "What goes up, must come down," theory. Of course, my doubt was soon to be misproven as, like a bat out of hell, that ball shot back to earth. Or, to be more accurate, back to face. It was as every external portion of my face was shooting to the back of my skull that I had the common sense to put my glove up. However, as one could connotate from the beginning of that sentence, it was too late.

I have a few fuzzy and dizzy memories from the moments immediately following the bombing. Mostly, I remember twelve other teenagers standing around me without a clue on what to do next. I also remember what seemed to me the stupidest question of all time. My dad ran out onto the field to see how badly I had been wounded by an object I'd been able to catch since my diaper days. I remember him asking, "Where does it hurt?" My response, which my dad to this day says is the most comforting words he ever heard from me, was what I believed to be an obvious answer to an obvious question. I stated, through all the pain and delirium: "Where it's bleeding from." Now, I realize today that the blood covered every square inch of my face, and half of my torso, so there was no way to know where it was originating from, but at the time, I was dizzy, and a little bit in pain. After I stated my response, he stands up and says, "Yeah, he'll be just fine."

There was an upside to this story, however. The setting is the hospital room where I am being stitched up. My left eye is roughly the size of Neptune, and also a similar shade of blue. I look to my right, and see the most beautiful young lass I'd ever laid eye on. Every aspect of her face was perfect, if one were to ignore the pus-leaking, swollen, greenish, self-inflicted attempt of a piercing-gone-wrong occupying the space one would expect to find a lip. Other than that, though, she was an angel.

Being the disoriented and slightly drooling dork that I was (At this point due to the Novacaine), I decided that there was no better atmosphere for flirting than a hospital. I opened the conversation with what I THOUGHT was sarcasm, and asked, "So what happened to you?" Well, the joke was lost on her, and she answered with completely sincerity, "I twied to peewf my ode wib-ip!" "Ah," I said, choking down a chuckle. "What about you?" she asked, keeping with the rhythm. I looked her in the eye and replied, "I kept my eye on the ball."