I wasn't sure if Sarah R was safe or not but I was already on third base when they had the ball near first. Never hesitated. You've got to be aggressive. We've been on fire this season scoring runs. I have been scoring every time I've been on base. My slightly younger and/or much faster teammates that have been batting lead off were unavailable so I put myself in that role. I even took four balls to walk to first.
My team's bench was on the third base line and I'm sure they all told me to stay. But there was a chance! I saw it. I went for it. And there came the ball, moments before reaching the box.
I jumped to try to maneuver around it. I thought maybe I could pull off some ballerina shit in the air and it would miss me. Before I was able to display my air-matrix abilities, I had already landed. I immediately said "Fuck" in a tone I never heard myself say before.
I'm doing my best to try to misremember exactly how that felt as I landed on the ground with my body trajectory towards home plate and I'm guessing my foot facing towards first. It felt like the knee just wobbled to the side. I never heard a pop. The ball hit my back left leg right before I landed adding insult to injury as I tumble bumbled out at home!
I got up and tried to shake it off. Joe Steak Madey looked right at me and said "You just tore your ACL". I tried to walk it off. I tried to jog a tiny bit. I walked over to my team and it gave out and put me on the ground. I still wanted to play but it did not feel right. I began icing it immediately. I tried standing up a few innings later and again fell. It never exactly hurt, but I could not stand. I knew something was wrong. I tried not to freak out. I texted my wife. I watched my team give up a pile of runs. I couldn't pitch. I could barely lead. We rally'd but never enough to come back. We lost our first game of the season. I tried to get up to shake hands with the other team, and felt the wobble and fell. I shimmied out on my butt, apologized to our opponents for not being able to go and congratulated them on their victory.
Here's the thing. I would have gone for home 10 times out of 10 in that situation. I tried to catch them sleeping. I made them make a play. And a play, they did make. Sarah turned out to be safe at first. Me, out.
I would want any of my quicker teammates to go for home in that situation too. The jump and lack of grace is the part I would have done over. It's funny. Trying to jump to dodge a tag out has never worked for me. The ball always hits me.
I should have stayed at third, but I didn't. And because of that split second decision, my life has been forever altered! But anyway! It happened and that's that!
Sarah R drove me and my stick shift car home and her sister Katie followed. Katie recommended I go to Bone & Joint the following day. I iced and elevated it for the remainder of the night and fell asleep to the trio of Analyze This, Analyze That, and Twins on Netflix. I had no clue how I was going to make it to my meeting at 9:30am the following morning all the way in Building 1's basement when I worked in Building 3. I certainly didn't own crutches or a motorized cart. I figured I would see how it felt in the morning and go from there. Spoiler, it didn't feel better in the morning.
I decided to start this journal as something I can reflect on to mark my progress. I'll use this as my outlet to talk about what's going on so I don't have to talk about it all the time elsewhere. I'll do my best to keep going with it. I like writing, won't claim I'm any good at it, but here's something I can write about.
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| Not a pretty sight! And the definition of doing it wrong! |
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