As
I lay motionless on the ground, a single thought entered my mind :
"Please don't let my father see me die." Then I passed out.
My
fastball was clocked at 99 MPH, but I knew as it left my hand that it
was going to catch too much of the plate. In slightly less than .4
seconds the 36 ounce bat had done its damage. In that small window of
time the batter, a man standing 6 feet 5 inches tall, weighing 235
pounds, who had already hit 46 home runs in the 2015 season, had gotten a
visual read on the pitch (after about 12 feet), decided to swing (after
about 30 feet) and began his attack on the less than 150 gram (about
5.25 ounce) sphere hurtling towards him.
The
exit speed of the ball after the collision of the two moving objects was
estimated at 113 MPH. A study stated that a 90 MPH fastball can be
returned by the hitter at up to 110 MPH. But as my offering was 10%
faster than the study, and thrown to one whose bat speed was off the
charts, the study be damned. The ball hit me before I even had time to
flinch.
My mother had died that spring. She
was 60 years old and had suffered through a three year battle with
cancer. There had been the usual treatments with chemotherapy and
radiation, and she had undergone surgery to try to eliminate the tumor
after it had shrunk due to the medical attack upon it. But,in the end,
it had been too far progressed before it was discovered. And despite
every effort of the doctors, and the incredible will of my mother to
live, the disease had proven too strong.
My
father was heartbroken. He and my mom met just after he finished
college and was entering law school. She had been lukewarm to his
attentions which drove my father absolutely nuts. After repeated efforts
to convince my mother that he was worthy of her, she relented. A one
year courtship began and in the spring of 1977 they were married.
I
was the oops baby. My oldest sister was born in 1981, followed by a
second child, another girl, in 1983. Even though both my parents would
have liked a boy to give some symmetry to the family, it was decided
that two was enough. But then, in a scene that must be repeated in many
households in every country in the world, one night in November,1988
something went wrong (or right) and so here I am.
If
my father was a talented attorney, which he was, he was as inept in
every other phase of life as was humanly possible. My mom always used to
lament the fact that she had four children. The truth was that she had
three children and one infant. While my sisters and I developed at a
normal pace of growth, mentally and physically, my father was stuck in a
holding pattern, unable to perform the most basic of tasks. And so the
roles of chief cook, bottle-washer, worker, mom and, in many aspects
dad, fell on the tiny shoulders of my mother.
The
one area where my father and I could bond, and did, was over baseball.
He loved the game, loved the smell of it, the sound and touch of it. He
loved everything about it, and most of all he loved to watch me play.
From my earliest contact with baseball, I was as drawn to it as my
father, and because of my father that love was only enhanced. We talked
baseball, we listened to baseball, we watched baseball and we always,
always played baseball. My first recollections are of me with a mitt on
my hand. My first pictures are of me in the crib, with a ball and bat
mobile over my head. And from the first, from the very beginning, it
turned out that I had a special talent for the game.
My
dad was assistant coach on my Little League team. He used to rush home
from working in New York City to appear in our suburban community in
Bergen County in time for the beginning of the game. Often he would
change out of his shirt and tie in the dugout seemingly only seconds
before the first pitch was thrown. But I never remember him being late
and I never remember him leaving until the last member of our team was
picked up by a parent and safely on his way home.
When I was 11, I pitched a perfect game, dominating the other team, embarrassing most of the hitters. After it was over, my teammates and I joked, in the cruel way that young people do, about the shortcomings of an over-matched opponent. When my dad and I were the only ones remaining in the dugout, he told me to come over to him. "I have never been as disappointed in you as I am now." His words were almost spit out at me. "You have been blessed with a special talent, but that does not make you any better than the next person. Those players on the other team may not have your athletic skills but today they were far superior to you in ways that are much more important. They tried as hard as they could, they took their defeat with grace, they were true sportsmen and athletes. Today they were the winners and you and your buddies showed yourself to be nothing but a bunch of immature losers." There was only silence on the car ride home.
Soon
after my mom was diagnosed, my parents sat me down to tell me of the
prognosis. I was in Triple A ball at that time, in my first year after
having graduated from college. My parents had insisted that I finish my
schooling before embarking on my career, even though I had been drafted
in the second round immediately after finishing high school, and even
though a very sizable financial incentive had been dangled in front of
me to forego my education. I loved college and
while I had occasional regrets about not taking the money and heading
off to the rookie league, I came to appreciate my parent's insistence
that I put my baseball career on hold.
I
was in the living room of my parent's house when my dad began to cry,
softly at first, then more loudly and finally uncontrollably. My mom
told him to stop, that it was not doing her any good and it was
certainly not making it any easier on me. And then she almost whispered
to me that she had between 6 and 12 months to live. I watched the tears stream down my father's face,even as he tried to stop them.
I
headed back to my team the following day. I had only been elevated to
Triple A three weeks earlier. I hadn't really made any good friends
there and so I dealt with my mom's "situation" on my own. And not very
well. I was treated very rudely in my two outings the week that followed
the revelation.
And
then one night there was a knock on my apartment door. There stood my
parents, my mother with a scowl on her face, a deep, full look of
disgust and displeasure directed at only me. "What the hell is the
matter with you?". My mother NEVER talked to me that way. and certainly
not after just having completed a 350 mile journey in a 14 year old Audi
with intermittent air conditioning, in order to visit her one and only
son. "Stop feeling
sorry for me and STOP feeling sorry for yourself. Get over it. Your
father and I are dealing with this and you are NOT allowed to make this
any harder on us. Go out and pitch like you know you can. Make us
proud." When she finished speaking she closed the apartment door in my
face. She and my father got back in the car and drove the 350 miles home
without a stop. I did not give up another earned run over the 34
innings of relief I pitched the rest of the 2011 season.
I am told that I appeared to be unconscious even before landing face first in my descent from the pitching mound which is elevated 10 inches from the rest of the diamond. . The ball hit me squarely in the left temple. I
had always been known as a good fielding pitcher, as my follow through
set me up well to gather any ball hit back to me. If I had been less
adept, maybe my body motion would have put me in a different stance and
the bullet might have laid a glancing blow or even whistled by me
entirely.
As it was, after striking my head, the ball retreated in the
direction from which it came, bounding with much speed just next to the
dugout where my teammates watched in horror. One camera angle panned in
and captured the faces as they realized what they were witnessing. My
best friend on the squad came running out to me even as the play was
still unfolding. It was a violation of every rule of the game to enter
in the midst of the action, but for this wrong no punishment would be
meted out.
My
father had come to very few games during the 2015 season. In the early
months, he was still in deep mourning, most days only working part time
and on occasion not even bothering to get out of bed. He was, in my
opinion and that of those around him, clinically depressed. Baseball,
which had always captured his heart and his soul, was unable to even
capture his attention. And even as I was having the best season of my
career, making the All-Star squad for the first time, and getting close
to signing a 6 year mega-deal with my team, even then, he was unable to
gather any pleasure from what was happening.
Reluctantly,
he attended the All Star game with me and took in some of the
festivities. In the past, his being shoulder to shoulder with the greats
of the game would have brought him to a place of unadulterated joy. But
without my mom around, he was a lost soul. Even my appearance, striking
out all three batters I faced, with one pitch being clocked at 101 MPH
brought only a somber "job well done" when I met him in the locker room
after the game.
As
July gave way to August and then September, the race heated up. We were
only two games out of first place on September 13, and the team that
stood between us and the pennant was in town for a three game set. We
managed victories in both of the first two contests and so, on the
morning of September 15 there was a deadlock at the top of the standings
in our division. And, for the first time all season, my father seemed
genuinely interested in what was going on with me and with the game we
both adored.
We
drove to the park together, arriving about 3 hours before the first
pitch. On the way in, we talked about the excitement of the moment and
the electricity that would be felt at the stadium that night. We
discussed how good my arm seemed, even this late in the season, and how
eager I was to get the ball in my hand. I wanted to pitch on the night
of September 15 maybe more than at any time in my entire career. I felt
that I could bring my dad back into the world if only I could do my job
well on this night. That he could stop grieving and start living. And I
wanted to do this for my mom to show her that I had learned the lesson
she taught the day she yelled at me and closed the door in my face.
On
October 16,1920 Ray Chapman was hit in the head by a pitch from Carl
Mays. It was twilight, the ball was scuffed up, and reports are that
Chapman never saw the pitch that killed him. The ball hit his skull with
such force that Mays thought the ball had made contact with the bat. As
the ball rolled out to him on the mound, he fielded it and threw it to
first. Chapman took several steps before collapsing to his knees, the
blood pouring out of his left ear. Twelve hours later he was dead. It
remains the only fatality of a player in the history of the major
leagues, dating back about a century and a half, and involving pitches
and hits in the many millions. As I remained apparently lifeless on the
field, the question everyone watching was pondering was whether I would
be the second. My dad's face turned ashen and he sunk deep into his
seat, almost fully slumped over.
I
had pitched the bottom of the eighth inning in this tie game, thrown
only thirteen pitches and retired the side in order. It was not my
routine to pitch two innings, having only done this once in the season.
But this was a pennant race and the rules of engagement were now
changed. And so I headed back to the mound for the last of the ninth
with our team leading by a run, thanks to a massive home run from our
clean up hitter. Three outs away from the sweep, and headed to first
place. I hoped my dad was enjoying the moment.
Herb
Score arrived on the major league scene as a 21 year old phenom in
1955. He would strike out 255 batters that season a rookie record that
stood for almost 30 years. He won 20 games in 1956. On May 7, 1957 he
threw a fastball to Gil McDougald. The ball sped off McDougald's bat and
hit Score squarely in the face, breaking multiple facial bones and
damaging his eye. McDougald, seeing what had happened, ran not in the
direction of first base, but directly to the mound. While Score would
recover, his career never did. He eventually retired in 1962, well short
of his 30th birthday.
The
6 foot 5 inch 235 pound man instantly knew that I was in trouble. Much
like the reaction of McDougald, and even in the most heated of moments
of a pennant race, his instincts took over. He sprinted from the
batter's box, not to the base that was awaiting his arrival as the
potential tying run in the most important game of the season, but
towards me. He would be called out for running
outside of the base paths.
The
protocol in baseball, when an injury happens or is suspected, is for
the team trainer to head out to the field to inspect the problem. Then,
except in the rarest of instances, the player is helped into the dugout,
if that is required, or walks off "under his own power". In all the
years that I had watched baseball and in all the years my dad had been
around the game we had never seen the ambulance go through the outfield
gates in the first instance. But, within a matter of what seemed only a
few seconds, there they were, ready to attend to me. They knew this was
serious.
My
dad had been seated several rows back from the field, along with family
members of many of the other players. After sitting slumped over for an
instant, he suddenly righted himself and stood up erect and focused. He
was going to his son, his only son and no one was stopping him.
The
security guards formed a protective shield around my dad and brought
him to the edge of the field. There he jumped over the three foot
barrier and ran towards me, in full stride. In what was but a brief
moment from when I went down, a most unusual group huddled
over me; the medical team, the batter, my best friend and my father. As
the umpires attempted to restore some sort of order and the teams
stayed a respectful distance away, this strange entourage assembled. In
the days that followed, the picture of these people thrown together in
the worst of circumstances went viral, receiving almost 30 million hits
within the first 72 hours.
And
as I lay there and the medical team worked furiously to try to get me
stabilized so they could move me into the ambulance, the voice of the
most senior of the medical personnel could be heard. "This does not look
good", he said reflexively and no one in particular, "this does not look good at all."
