Moneyball

OOohhhhhh Moneyball is an awesome movie and it makes me nostalgic about baseball. I watched it after the ex drunk called me at 1 and woke me up and now I’ve been thinking about Baseball/sports all day. Sports gives you lots of stories but only a few triumph moments compared to the amount of injuries you see. I like that they glorify the indignity of baseball in Moneyball while showing the heart. It’s a constant comparison of abilities that never leaves you satisfied even when you’re the coaches favorite. I played All Star baseball through high school despite that I was tiny. I didn’t hit my growth spurt until I was about 16. I’m 6 feet even and usually pretty scrawny but I had an eye for pitches that made me the most consistent hitter on the team. I batted second or third, got on base easily and had speed from playing Select Soccer too. I played short stop or second, pitched when people got tired…So All Star is the best players from one league who play against other leagues in tournaments around the state. Some leagues really suck as they’re small towns and don’t have much to farm from and the city leagues were phenomenal teams that always won championships. I came from a middle sized town so we had a power pitcher, a good catcher and a good infield but our outfield sucked….anyways, our team came to the playoff round and their pitcher was one of the kids that sprouted to adulthood way before anyone else. In the first inning I batted third with a runner on second and first. I got a pitch right in my sweet spot and almost parked it but the center fielder was quick and caught it up the fence. So my next at bat the outfielders backed up deep (very flattering since I was usually a double or single hitter) and the pitcher was probably nervous and he threw a wild pitch straight at me. You get taught in baseball to turn your front when a pitch is going to hit you because your back is more sensitive but it goes against your natural tendencies as a man, you don’t want your junk to get hit even though you have a cup on, I turned my back and got hit on the lowest vertebra of my spine. I lost feeling in my legs for about three minutes and when feeling came back it felt like I was being shocked over and over again. I was literally paralyzed and couldn’t use my legs for those three minutes. I quit baseball after that. I couldn’t shake the fear out of my head. My spine got knocked out of place about a half an inch and to this day I still can’t stretch my right side fully. When I do yoga I can’t do triangle poses or anything on that side without using a block or resting my hand on my knee. If I drive with my wallet in my pocket I start to hurt and have to take my wallet out.

I’ll continue the Kayla story later…I’ve just been thinking about this today.