A Question Of Age, An Overdue Apology, Possible Surgery by BJ Neblett

            A couple of summer back, I was accused of not being forthcoming, or open and honest about my age. While that Sunday first date could have admittedly gone smoother, it certainly didn’t do much to endear me to the object of my affection. I have never been one to be coy about my age. Truth be known, I was so enamored and totally taken with the beautiful young woman that I stuttered and stammered my way through the encounter like a naive schoolboy on his first date. As a result of my uncharacteristic shyness, I managed to blow what I still believe can be a remarkable relationship. Live and learn… but it still stings… quite a bit. And the way things were left between us still haunts me today. Some say it’s just the hopeless romantic in me. But it’s more than just that… a lot more… and goes a lot deeper. All I ever wanted was a chance; a chance for us to talk; to get to know one another; an opportunity for her to meet the real me, and to see where it all may lead. For my conspicuous, confusing and faltering behavior, to the lovely lady in question, my sincerest apologies. But sometimes the heart does what it wants without asking the brain. I only hope my words reach their intended destination.

            Closer to my real persona, I often jape that I am 64, look 44, feel 24, and act 14. Perhaps I should have just lead with those words two years ago. But actually, there is a lot more truth than humor to that statement. I have been blessed with great genes, and with being very youthful and fit. Perhaps baseball/softball is the real fountain of youth. I have pitched baseball and softball all of my life, and still possess the control, skill and finesse of someone half my age. Providence, however, does have its price. Just as someone in their prime, I seem to have possibly developed a condition that is the bane of professional pitchers. Tommy John Elbow, named after the famous Dodgers/Yankees pitcher, is damage to the UCL, or ulnar collateral ligament below the elbow, which connects the humerus to the ulna. Through excessive use and strain, such as a pitcher encounters, the ligament can become stretched and distended, losing its elasticity; much as a rubber band can be stretched out of shape. Worst case scenario calls for surgery, a procedure named Tommy John Surgery, in which the damaged ligament is replaced by a tendon harvested from another part of the body. It’s scary stuff, indeed. The good news is that a complete and full recovery, including returning to pitching, is the norm.

            I had my first, initial exam this week, and will be seeing a professional in sports medicine specializing in elbows and shoulders in the weeks to come. That, I am sure, will be followed by MRI’s, CT Scans, and a host of other test and procedures designed to provide a definitive diagnoses of the problem.

            And before you ask: The condition has limited the range of motion in my right elbow. Yes, I am continuing to play softball and to pitch. We play slow pitch softball and the condition has not seriously affected my pitching game. It has somewhat affected my ability to throw overhand. Yes, it is a bit painful, more so at times. I am wearing an elbow brace to help limit the amount of damage and pain. And yes, as you already know… see posts to this blog, September 16^th, 23^rd, and 28^th, 2014… I’m not real good with hospitals. As they say, stay tuned for further developments. Your comments and questions are, as always, welcomed.

            Finally, as a request, next weekend I will be reviewing stories published in July’s eFiction Magazine. You can click the picture to the right for more info on this great publication, and to obtain a copy.

            Peace,

            BJ

Nicolas Cage Or John Travolta/New Poetry by BJ Neblett

Nicolas Cage Or John Travolta/New Poetry
BJ Neblett

The new issue of Five Poetry (Vol 2 No 2) is now available through Amazon, B&N and the publisher Fiction Magazines. Just click the image to the right. The magazine features five works by five poets on a single topic. I have five somewhat personal recent poems in this issue relating to love, tracing a faltering love affair. For those of you without a Kindle type device, the issue will be available in other formats (.pdf, etc) through the publisher next month.
Tuesday is the day I enter the dreaded hospital for some facial reconstruction surgery. Now that most of the swelling has gone down, I actually don't look too bad. (Some will argue the fact. Many I'm sure wish there had been more damage done.) But the doc says the procedure is necessary to prevent future complications. He also needs to see first hand if there is any other damage not revealed by the MRI. I SHOULD be out sometime Wednesday, maybe Thursday. Most of you know I am not comfortable in or around hospitals and I am doing this one all alone... such is the life of a bachelor. I guess the only question left is will I come out looking like John Travolta or Nicolas Cage. (Vague movie reference.) I'll be happy just to come out. You can bury me under the pitcher's mound. (Grave marker inscription: HE LOVED NOT WISELY BUT TOO WELL.) I just hope they have softball in heaven. (Vague reference to my short story It's Only A Game, posted November 11-18, 2012)
Thanks. I'll be in touch as soon as possible.
BJ

Déjà Vu All Over Again by BJ Neblett

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Beautiful late summer evening. Softball under the lights. Last game of the season. It all seemed way too familiar. You know: Been there, done that. I've said it often, when things seem to be repeating themselves it is usually for a reason. Fate or something or someone is trying to tell you something. You should listen. Of course, as usual, I wasn't paying attention.
Below you will see the results of when an inattentive pitcher tries to stop a hard hit line drive with his face. (No for the squeamish) I have a fractured nasal bone, a fractured orbital bone, and several fractures of the left cheek bone. Easily the worst injury I've suffered in my long and storied baseball/softball career as a pitcher. By the way, I picked up the ball and threw the runner out before I commenced to bleed all over the pitcher's mound... pure instinct and reflex.
Speaking of déjà vu and a storied career, this is good a time to re-post the true story of my last, eerily similar, injury which took place on a beautiful summer night, under the lights, last game of the season. (Also not for the squeamish) Enjoy.
BJ

         

Some of the swelling had gone down, the discoloration on the way!

Perhaps I should have a red target on my chest.

See me right here next season!

The Most Dangerous Pitch

BJ Neblett

© 2007, 2014

            Blood dripped onto the hard, cracked, sun dried earth, creating puddles of crimson mud. This was the first time I’d been hit and unable to complete a play. That’s what made me the maddest; that and the fact that we were ahead, winning. I was pitching a shutout into the fourth inning: no walks; a couple of strike outs. The nine guys behind me were doing a great job of handling the ball. And our opponents, a team made up of tough, young Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, were no slouches in the field.

            I was still standing when the first player reached me. I think it was Jose from the other team. He’d been on second base. Bent over, my blood pooling at my feet, I felt the comforting touch of his strong hand on my back.

            “Easy, take it easy.”

            My hand cradled my swollen right eye. It felt as if it would pop from its socket. Adrenalin still surged in my body as my good left eye desperately searched the infield around me. “Where’s the ball… where’s the damn ball?”

            Someone hollered to stop the play. “He’s hurt,” they shouted, “It’s a ground rule double.”

            A double, which would mean Jose would score. I cursed silently and then caught myself, asking for God’s forgiveness; and to save my sight. By now my eye throbbed, swollen shut, swelling to nearly the size of the softball that struck it.

            “Damn,” I repeated out loud as my team mates began to crowd around. Shock and concern showed through their troubled cries of, “Oh, God,” and “Wow!” Then again, head and face wounds do tend to bleed a lot. You’d have thought someone spilt a quart of red ink into the parched dirt.

            As a pitcher, you have an invisible target painted on your chest. You are fair game for every line shot, bouncing drive, and screaming grounder that burns its way up the middle. On the mound you have two responsibilities: pitch the ball, and get set. Or, better put, catch the ball without getting killed in the process. In baseball, you are sixty feet, six inches away from the batter, and raised ten inches. Softball plants you on the same plain as the hitter, some forty seven to fifty feet from home plate. And the extra feet can make all the difference, the difference between a hit and an out; between a bad bruise and a career ending injury.

            Baseball rookie for the Cleveland Indians, Herb Score led the American League in strike outs each of his first two seasons. In 1957, during a game against arch rival New York, Score was struck in the eye by a line drive off the bat of Yankee Gil McDouglas. His comeback lasted five frustrating seasons. But the one time overpowering pitcher never again posted a winning record.¹

            While waving to a relative during warm ups at Washington’s Griffith Stadium, Julius ‘Moose’ Solters was struck in the face by a thrown ball. The veteran American League outfielder fought back from the injury, but it eventually caused him to go blind.²

            Being known as possibly the first and only person ever blinded during a softball game was not a distinction I was interested in carrying.

            No one intentionally tries to hit the pitcher. That would be stupid. Chances are you’d be thrown out at first; maybe out of the game if your intentions are known. It just happens, more often than many people realize. Hairline shin fractures, battered knee caps and dislocated fingers are a part of a pitcher’s life. I should have known better. I have the experience, and the scars, to prove my point.

            In slow pitch softball, after release, there is an easy two and a half to three seconds before the ball reaches the plate. There’s plenty of time for a hitter to adjust himself in the batter’s box, and more than enough time for the pitcher to get set. Freak accidents do happen. But there is no excuse for any player not to be ready.

            Getting sloppy on the mound can shorten your career considerably. A combination of recent victories, plus having avoided being seriously hit for some time, conspired to make me careless. Instead of watching the travel of the ball, estimating where the hit ball would travel, and getting set, I found myself remaining planted on the rubber, no better than a spectator, after the pitch.

            To compound matters, I’d been working on a new pitch. The past couple of weeks, while honing my curve ball, I discovered a sharp downward breaking ball. During batting practice, the new pitch proved devastating to right handed hitters, and frustrating for lefties. Cutting sharply inside and dropping with a wild spin, no one seemed to be able to strike the ball squarely. The best efforts of some of the most skillful hitters resulted in a bouncing hard grounder or a low line drive. A few were able to get the ball in the air. When they did, it usually went straight up for a short pop fly.

            Because of the propensity of even pull hitters to send the pitch back up the middle of the infield, I jokingly dubbed my new weapon my ‘Come Back Pitch.’ During practice I threw out several surprised opponents at first base. My come back, often as not, came back right into my waiting glove.

            I worked on perfecting my new pitch. Slow pitch softball is far from an exact science. Tossing the oversized sphere at the proper height and arc, the balls fall victim to the slightest breeze. Sometimes you can make the wind work for you, bending an outside lob right into the face of an unsuspecting hitter, or cutting the edge of the plate. That is, if you are lucky. Otherwise, the best you can hope for is a corner plate strike. Knuckle balls, spinners and curve balls can also be used to thwart hitters, but are difficult to master. My ‘Come Back’ pitch had the added advantage of a fast, tight spin, making it extra difficult to place squarely on the bat.

            One of my heroes of the old time players is a pitcher for the hapless Washington Senators, nicked named ‘the Big Train.’ From around 1900 through the ‘20’s, Walter Johnson terrorized hitters with what most consider to be the fastest fast ball in the major leagues, then and since.

            How fast was Johnson’s fast ball?

            Consider Ray Chapman.

            Chapman once took first one, then a second blazing fast ball from the Big Train, Johnson. Stepping out of the batter’s box, the stunned hitter headed towards the dugout only to be reminded by the umpire he had another strike coming. Chapman continued on his way, calmly calling back over his shoulder, “Keep it. I don’t want it.”

            Perhaps the ill-fated Chapman should have taken the event as an omen. On October 10, 1920, while up at bat, Ray Chapman was struck and killed by a fast ball from pitcher Carl Mays.³

            We jumped out to a quick two run lead our first at bat. I managed to set down three of the four batters I faced in the bottom of the first, including a strike out. Our team went three up, three down, as did the opposition, in an uneventful second inning. We went up four to nothing with two more runs scored in the third off of left fielder Ron’s triple. The last of the third started off innocently enough with a routine pop fly. Then the bottom fell out. A single up the middle, a misplayed grounder followed by a line shot, and the bases were loaded. And the top of their lineup was coming to bat.

            It was time for some fancy arm work.

            It was time to try out the ‘Come Back.’

            The first pitch caught Alfredo, a good hitter, by surprise. Looking at first like it would fall short and outside, the ball veered sharply inside, slicing the edge of the plate. The look on his face was priceless.

            Ok… strike one…

            So far, so good...

            I gave him two junk pitches to think about, then another Come Back. It tipped off the edge of his bat and rolled harmlessly towards the mound, right to me. A quick throw home for the force and there were two outs.

            Franco wouldn’t be so easy. After a couple of called balls and a Come Back called strike, I gave him a sharply curving breaking pitch, thanks to a friendly cross breeze. He swung hard. But the backspin sent the ball straight up. It was caught by the catcher. Out number three and we were out of the inning. The Come Back had done its job.

            Our fourth inning produced a couple of hits but no runs. Then it was their turn again. And their three best sluggers were coming to bat.

            Jimmy is a strong pull hitter. He had managed a double and a triple off of me in other games. He wouldn’t bite on a short lob which fell ineffectually in front of the plate. My second pitch, a Come Back, he sent past me to my right. Our short stop bobbled the hard hit bouncing grounder, but managed to throw Jimmy out at first.

            Next was Jose, the team’s cleanup hitter and a threat to send one out anytime at bat. He’d gotten a deep dangerous fly off of me in the first inning which thankfully turned into a long out. I toyed with him best I could, giving him nothing to swing at until the count was three and two. Then he saw my Come Back. He not only saw it, but lined it like a rocket past me, the short stop and the infield for a double. My Come Back was earning its name. Those two shots should have told me something. They didn’t. I was still standing flat foot on the rubber.

            Bugara hits the ball probably as hard as humanly possible. His drives jump to the outfield before anyone has a chance to react. He once hit three tape measure homers over center field in three consecutive at bats in one game. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to fool around with him. Not with Jose at second and only one out. Even a sacrifice fly to the outfield would result in a run scoring. I took a deep breath, let it out, and tossed a Come Back.

            And it did…

            As best I can figure, the ball came off his bat and tipped off my glove in about half a second. That works out to something like 75 or 80 miles per hour.

            And there I stood.

            I raised my glove, but not quickly enough, not far enough.

            Victims of automobile accidents often report that at the moment of impact time seems to move in slow motion. I now understand what they experience. For one protracted fraction of a second time stood still. The din of the spectators faded to a distant thunder in my ears. My gloved hand crept skywards. It paused motionless in front of me at about nose level. The dull white leather clad ball balanced precariously on the edge of the mitt’s webbing, frozen in space. One thought replayed in my mind over and over, like a stuck 45 RPM record: I’m not going to catch this.

            And then someone hit fast forward.

            The speeding projectile tipped off my glove and mercifully slowed slightly. It slammed into my face, catching the cheek bone and upper eye socket squarely with a brain jarring, sickening thud.

            I was helped off the field, still holding the bloody wad of tissue someone provided, against my eye brow. It is interesting and strange to note that I never experienced any major pain, especially considering the seriousness of the injury. At the time of the impact, I felt as if punched by a gloved boxer, more surprising than painful. After, a dull, achy throb and a feeling of pressure against the eye ball were the main discomforts. By morning, and for several weeks, the entire orbit around my right eye remained extremely tender, swollen and sore.

            It’s never a good sign when your attending physician grimaces at your injury. The swelling and discoloration were severe. For others it made looking at the damages more painful than the actual experience. After tolerating an hour of ice, the gash just below my eye brow was cleaned and stitched. A comprehensive exam commenced including x-rays and a lot of discomforting prodding and poking. The doc said keeping the badly swollen and bruised eye socket well iced may have helped saved my sight. I was released with anti-biotic and strict orders to keep my eye iced constantly for the next twenty four hours. Two days later an optimistic optometrist said he could find no permanent damage, thank God. But I wasn’t out of the woods yet. He told me it would be weeks, maybe more, before the long term affects of such an injury could be determined.

            In the ‘60’s, Tony Conigliaro was well on his way to a hall of fame career. Joining the Boston Red Sox in 1964, in just a few seasons, the twenty two year old right fielder hit an amazing 104 home runs, running up 294 RBIs, with a .276 average.

            On August 18, 1967, Tony C came to bat in the fifth inning against California Angels’ pitcher Jack Hamilton. A fast ball, estimated near 100 MPH, struck Conigliaro in the left cheek bone. The impact shattered his eye socket and permanently damaged his left eye.

            Conigliaro was carried off the field on a stretcher. It wasn’t immediately known if he would survive the injury. Tony survived and returned to the Red Sox in 1969, moving to the Angels in 1971. After three disappointing seasons, it was evident the damage done on that August night in 1967 was too great, and he retired.

            Tony C suffered a massive heart attack and stroke in 1982 which left him in a vegetative state. The one time Cooperstown bound slugger passed away shortly after his 45^th birthday in 1990.⁴

            Sunday, October 14^th. It was too soon. I knew it was too soon. The days were growing short, the air chilly. Softball would be ending. I wasn’t about to spend the winter wondering how it would feel; wondering if I would pitch again; if I could pitch again.

            Outwardly, my eye was healing quickly. All that remained was some discoloration and a forming scar where the stitching of the ball cut me.

            But that was on the outside.

            The pressure on my eyeball subsided, returning from time to time. And my depth perception was nearly normal. At least that’s what I told myself. But I was starting to be bothered by sparks of light, flashes they are called, and they can be harbingers of more serious problems to come.

            Still, I was determined; stubborn.

            For the first time in my life, nervousness and doubt accompanied me to the mound. Doing my best to shake the feeling, I steeled up some counterfeit courage and took my warm up pitches.

            Not bad…

            Not good either…

            Then again, a four week layoff will rust up anybody’s arm. Even without a batter to face, I found myself purposely avoiding the pitch that had nearly blinded me. It’s too soon I rationalized. Just stick with the basics.

            It did little to easy my churning stomach.

            The first hitter of the game dug into the batter’s box. A familiar, reassuring voice reached me from left field. It was my friend Ron. “Give ‘em the old ‘Come Back,’ Billy!”

            And so I did.

1. Cahan, Richard and Mark Jacob, The Game That Was, p. 230

2. Cahan, Richard and Mark Jacob, The Game That Was, p. 231

3. Cahan, Richard and Mark Jacob, The Game That Was, pp. 24, 138

4. David Eisenthal, davideinsenthal.typepad.com

Ponytail by BJ Neblett

One of the more popular forms of story telling these days is Flash Fiction, a self contained piece usually of around 500 words. I'm not sure if there is anything as 'Flash Non-Fiction', so let's just put this piece in the 'What I Did During My Summer Vacation' category. Those who are familiar with my writing know that if you wish to get to know me, just read my short stories. Enjoy, and as always be sure to comment.
BJ

Ponytail

by BJ Neblett

© 2013

This story appears in Short Story Me. For a free read please click the link below:
http://www.short-story.me/fantasy-stories/595-ponytail-happy-birthday-kristin.html

Chapter One Ice Cream Camelot by BJ Neblett

Here is a sneak peek at the first chapter of my new historical memoir Ice Cream Camelot about my growing up during the Kennedy administration. It is available now as an e book and will be out in paperback from Brighton Publishing in about a month. Enjoy.
BJ
Ice Cream Camelot
by BJ Neblett
Copyright © 2013
ISBN: 978-1-621830-92-4

Chapter One

When you are a boy of eleven you know everything: everything you need to know, everything you want to know, and a lot of stuff you don’t care about. The latter comes mostly from school and parents. The other stuff, the stuff much more important to the boy of eleven, comes from the street, from the guys you hang with—from friends. It comes from comic books and older brothers’ Playboy magazines; from JD Salinger and William Golding and Ray Bradbury; from Mickey Spillane under the covers with a flashlight; from movies and TV; and from just being eleven.

At eleven, a boy’s vision is a panoramic three hundred and sixty degrees. His mind is a sponge, his understanding instant. He loves and hates with the same over-abundance of enthusiasm. And he can switch between the two in less time than it takes to lose a prized Warren Spahn or Joe Oliver baseball card in a heated game of Match.

His world may stretch from the corner drugstore to the local hangout to the junior high; from the neighborhood pool to deep inside the woods he’s not suppose to enter, to the spooky old house that gets egged each Mischief Night. But to the eleven year old, this world includes the dusty frontier streets of Dodge City and the reddish, rusty surface of Mars. He covers his territory on his trusty two-wheeler that is at once a painted appaloosa or a thundering Indy race car.

The eleven-year-old boy lives for the moment and dreams of the future. Life is simple at eleven. Life is black and white. Life is good. Life is uncomplicated for the eleven-year-old boy.

Except for when it comes to the eleven-year-old girl. Then logic short circuits and the world becomes a melting ice cream cone of twenty-seven flavors, an impossible choice between apple pie and chocolate cake, between Roger Maris and Willie Mays.

This condition can be directly traced to a simply complex source: hormones. When freshly hatched hormones meet eleven-year-old logic, they beget a love child named confusion.

The eleven-year-old boy can figure out and understand anything—how to take apart his sister’s bicycle, what makes his mom crazy, the bare minimum it takes to appease his teacher. And how to sneak into a Saturday matinee, where to find the best returnable bottles, and shortcuts to just about anywhere.

He also knows how to make the entire fifth-grade class laugh out loud and how to strike out the school bully, thus humiliating him. These ploys are always good for impressing the eleven-year-old girl. But he doesn’t understand why he wants to impress her, only that he wants to—has to—needs to—impress her.

All of this is true. I know. I was an eleven-year-old boy. I lived in Camelot and ate the ice cream before it all melted, all twenty-seven flavors.

The lightly freckled, eleven-year-old object of my personal confusion appeared on the first day of school in 1961.

***

For some reason school always started on a Wednesday. Not on a Monday as logic might dictate, but on a Wednesday.

My eyes opened involuntarily to the sound of water running. Then off. Then running…

Off.

Running…

Off.

Dad was in the bathroom, shaving.

Men on TV rinsed their Gillette safety razors in the murky water pooling in the sink. My Uncle Jimmy used an electric razor: Close as a blade, twice as comfortable.

Not my dad. Seven days a week—an hour later on Sunday—it was push, pull, click, lock. Then shave… rinse… shave… rinse. Water running… Water off.

Running…

Off.

There was a slot in the back of the medicine cabinet where Dad ejected the used razor blades, push, pull, click, lock.

“Where do the razor blades go?”

“Down inside the wall.”

Running…

Off.

“What happens when the wall gets filled up?”

Dad gave me an incredulous look. Another question unanswered. Parents do that sometimes, give their kids the look and don’t answer. They want them to figure it out for themselves. Like the one about the first day of school.

“Why Wednesday?”

Of all the adults I asked over the years, not one could give me a satisfactory answer. Some gave me the look.

“Why Wednesday?”

Something about Labor Day and vacations and the school year. Then why do some schools begin before Labor Day?

I never figured it out for myself. But whatever the reason, it seemed to fit, seemed right. Like Thanksgiving always being on Thursday, only of course without the giving thanks—or the cranberries.

Push, pull, click, lock…

If I hurried, I could be next in the bathroom, before my sister. Mary, being two years older, had the larger bedroom, right next to the bathroom. I slept in there one time when my room was being painted. The toilet kept running and kept me awake until dad got up and went in and hit the handle. When my sister gets married in 1969 I’ll move into her room.

Today is a Wednesday, not a hurrying day. Mondays are for hurrying, if you are the hurrying type. Some people are. I’m not.

You see, there is a natural order about things: peanut butter sandwiches are made with grape jelly, not strawberry. The toilet paper roll can go either way, over or under. School starts on Wednesday. You rush on Monday, maybe Tuesday morning, not Wednesday. Someday the wall will get filled up with used razor blades.

Grownups don’t seem to understand these things, at least not parents. Or they have forgotten, or don’t care. It’s a shame—being grown up seems to take something from a person.

No more water running.

Dad left the bathroom and headed downstairs. He switched on the white plastic Silvertone kitchen table radio. Everything in 1961 was made of plastic.

“WIP news time, 5:46 a.m.”

He’ll cook two fried eggs in butter, three pieces of bacon, juice, coffee, milk, and two slices of toast with butter. The broiler drawer on the gas oven squealed like one of grandpa’s piglets. It’s the same thing every morning.

Squeal!

In a couple of years dad will suffer a mild heart attack. He’ll change his eating habits a little. And he’ll start noticing some things again. When I return home from the Army in 1972, my parents will still be making toast in the gas oven’s broiler.

Squeal!

Maybe if they had bought a toaster they would have stayed married.

***

I could hear my sister in the bathroom. Mary’s the hurrying type most of the time. She’ll make a good parent. She already has the look.

It was too early to get up. Jerry Stevens hadn’t even come on yet. The transistor radio under my pillow was still switched on. I must have fallen asleep with it on again. Good thing I had a spare nine volt.

The radio was a surprise gift from my parents last Christmas. My sister got one, too. Her's was red, mine black plastic with silver trim and white dials, in a soft leather case. It was about the size of a pack of cigarettes, king size.

One night I came home from hanging out with the guys. Hanging out with the guys is important in an eleven-year-old boy’s life: the street corner or vacant lot or playground is his society, his clique, his water cooler. It’s an integral part of how a boy of eleven knows everything. The guys I hung out with were mostly older.

Arriving home, my mom met me at the door. I had a pack of Salem cigarettes in the breast pocket of my denim jacket.

Mom pointed to the obvious bulge. “What’s that?”

“My radio.”

The black transistor radio with the built-in antenna became my prized possession. From the Christmas I received it in 1960, it never left me. It changed my life in several ways. I still have it.

The radio gave the time—one minute till six—then a legal ID. Those are the ones with the station’s call letters and transmitter location: every hour at the top of the hour—FCC regulations. My mind was set on being a radio DJ. Spin all the hits—another Alan Freed.

“WIBG radio 99, Lafayette Hills—Philadelphia, a Storer Broadcasting Company.”

It was news time. I switched off my radio and slipped it from the leather case to install a fresh battery. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the news; unlike most kids my age, I often listened.

One winter morning in 1959 the smell of Dad’s breakfast was too strong. If you joined him he’d cook for you, as long as you didn’t talk too much, so he could listen to the news. Dad didn’t seem to know or care anything about music. I came downstairs hoping he was still frying bacon. Peggy Sue flowed out of the white plastic table radio. Dad was listening to rock‘n’roll?

The song faded after a few seconds. The popular La Bamba segued in; then the music dissolved. “JP Richardson, known as the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly, dead in an Iowa plane crash. This is 610, WIP.”

I was very aware of rock 'n' roll and familiar with Buddy Holly. My aunt Mary often looked after me till she died of breast cancer at a very young age. Mom’s kid sister never married. She smoked, worked in night clubs, and dated a cool guy named Dominick who carried a pistol, drove a big black Buick, and was connected. She loved him and loved music. I loved her. I can still see her influences on me today.

It was from my aunt that I learned about blues, jazz, bop, R&B, and, most of all, about rock ’n’ roll. My sister and I were already collecting 45’s. Wherever we went there was music: on the radio; the juke box; the record player; in Dominick’s car. It was music that my aunt loved, music that spoke to me, somehow made me feel special.

I remember being at my grandmother’s, in front of her burly Dumont TV, watching Bandstand. This was when rock ’n’ roll was uncorrupted by big money, before the network took the show national. Aunt Mary would pull me up off the floor to dance along with the kids on the flickering black-and-white screen.

After my aunt’s death, my sister and I continued to tune in Dick Clark and American Bandstand. She liked to watch the dancers and see the guest stars. For me it was always the music.

My aunt provided the first piece of the puzzle that was my enigmatic life: music. My transistor radio was the key.

I think that February morning in 1959 was the first time I made a conscious effort to listen to the news. That evening my sister and I ate supper on the folding plastic TV trays in the den. John Facenda, Channel Ten’s stoic anchor, gave the news in his classic, baritone, authoritative announcer’s voice: a fire in west Philly, a shooting, an accident on the Schuylkill Expressway tying up the morning commute, Castro in Cuba.

Then there were haunting images of a private plane, what was left of it, smashed and tangled, up-ended against a barbed-wire fence. Three indistinguishable bodies lay scattered in the fresh snow, like discarded rags, the pilot dead in the cockpit.

The Evening Bulletin carried a front-page headline: Rock Stars Die in Plane Crash, and a half-page article with more pictures inside. My sister kept the newspaper clipping taped to her bedroom mirror till she graduated from high school.

I remember the news of the three young musicians’ deaths making me feel bad, empty. Aunt Mary had just recently passed away. The deaths of Holly, Valens, and the Bopper made me feel as I did when my aunt died. But I didn’t understand why.

I found myself listening to the news in the morning with Dad sometimes. I didn’t always know what I was hearing. Often I’d ask questions about what was being said. Dad would give me the look, not wishing to be disturbed. But later, after dinner, he’d point out an article in the Bulletin that pertained to my earlier question.

I learned to read the newspaper that way. I learned about the world, about war and crime, about the race for space and struggles going on in Cuba and some place called Southeast Asia, and about something called integration and segregation. Dad taught me many things this way, with the look and then helping me to figure it out for myself. But my young brain managed to adopt its own kind of twisted isolationist logic. I didn’t know anyone whose name appeared in the newspaper or on TV, not personally anyway. The victims of crimes and accidents, those who lived in other countries, even other states, weren’t important. They weren’t connected to me or my family or my friends. Therefore, their lives couldn’t have an impact on my own. I came to refer to them in my mind as background people. Things happened to them, not to me. Yet my aunt was gone, as were my mom’s dad and mom. And the tragic plane crash in Iowa stirred new, even more confused feelings inside of me, as did the titillating sounds and images flowing from my radio.

WIBG—Wibbage—didn’t do much news, mostly in the morning, and just enough to keep the FCC happy. What little they gave was short, concise, and usually of interest to me. I liked that. Mostly they just played the hits along with the “oldies,” a term newly coined by LA DJ Art Laboe. It was perfect. Not only did my little radio keep me up with all the hits, it filled me in on the great rock ’n’ roll I may have missed.

But as the 1960 campaigns and presidential election rolled around, I became fascinated by the grim, determined images on the nightly news. The interviews, the speeches, the promises, the accusations and counter charges, and the raucous, chaotic conventions with their balloons and banner waving and frantic calls to order, gavel hammering away, held my attention. Every evening the two icons—the elder, unshaven establishment, and the young, clean-cut, charismatic hopeful—debated the economy, world trade, isolationism, communism, and other topics new to me right there in my den. In the pre-Dallas fall of 1960 I was actually able to shake the hands of both Kennedy and Nixon, as each motored in turn through my welcoming little town.

The background people were beginning to spill over into my safe, comfortable, innocent existence.

The news, local and national, gradually became part of my young life. In the rapidly changing ’60s, it was hard to avoid. With true parental logic, my parents complained that if I could watch the news and read the newspaper, why couldn’t I do my homework and do better in school?

I didn’t give them the look. The answer was simple and clear: school was boring.

The Most Dangerous Pitch by BJ Neblett

The Most Dangerous Pitch

by BJ Neblett
© 2007

             Blood dripped onto the hard, cracked, sun dried earth, creating puddles of crimson mud. This was the first time I’d been hit and unable to complete a play. That’s what made me the maddest; that and the fact that we were ahead, winning. I was pitching a shutout into the fourth inning: no walks; a couple of strike outs. The nine guys behind me were doing a great job of handling the ball. And our opponents, a team made up of tough, young Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, were no slouches in the field.

            I was still standing when the first player reached me. I think it was Jose from the other team. He’d been on second base. Bent over, my blood pooling at my feet, I felt the comforting touch of his strong hand on my back.
            “Easy, take it easy.”
            My hand cradled my swollen right eye. It felt as if it would pop from its socket. Adrenalin still surged in my body as my good left eye desperately searched the infield around me. “Where’s the ball… where’s the damn ball?”
            Someone hollered to stop the play. “He’s hurt,” they shouted, “It’s a ground rule double.”
            A double, which would mean Jose would score. I cursed silently and then caught myself, asking for God’s forgiveness; and to save my sight. By now my eye throbbed, swollen shut, swelling to nearly the size of the softball that struck it.
            “Damn,” I repeated out loud as my team mates began to crowd around. Shock and concern showed through their troubled cries of, “Oh, God,” and “Wow!” Then again, head and face wounds do tend to bleed a lot. You’d have thought someone spilt a quart of red ink into the parched dirt just behind the pitcher’s mound.

             As a pitcher, you have an invisible target painted on your chest. You are fair game for every line shot, bouncing drive, and screaming grounder that burns its way up the middle. On the mound you have two responsibilities: pitch the ball, and get set. Or, better put, catch the ball without getting killed in the process. In baseball, you are sixty feet, six inches away from the batter, and raised ten inches. Softball plants you on the same plain as the hitter, some forty seven to fifty feet from home plate. And the extra feet can make all the difference, the difference between a hit and an out; between a bad bruise and a career ending injury.

            Baseball rookie for the Cleveland Indians, Herb Score led the American League in strike outs each of his first two seasons. In 1957, during a game against arch rival New York, Score was struck in the eye by a line drive off the bat of Yankee Gil McDouglas. His comeback lasted five frustrating seasons. But the one time overpowering pitcher never again posted a winning record.¹

            While waving to a relative during warm ups at Washington’s Griffith Stadium, Julius ‘Moose’ Solters was struck in the face by a thrown ball. The veteran American League outfielder fought back from the injury, but it eventually caused him to go blind.²
            Being known as possibly the first and only person ever blinded during a softball game was not a distinction I was interested in carrying.

             No one intentionally tries to hit the pitcher. That would be stupid. Chances are you’d be thrown out at first; maybe out of the game if your intentions are known. It just happens, more often than many people realize. Hairline shin fractures, battered knee caps and dislocated fingers are a part of a pitcher’s life. I should have known better. I have the experience, and the scars, to prove my point.

           In slow pitch softball, after release, there is an easy two and a half to three seconds before the ball reaches the plate. There’s plenty of time for a hitter to adjust himself in the batter’s box, and more than enough time for the pitcher to get set. Freak accidents do happen. But there is no excuse for any player not to be ready.
            Getting sloppy on the mound can shorten your career considerably. A combination of recent victories, plus having avoided being seriously hit for some time, conspired to make me careless. Instead of watching the travel of the ball, estimating where the hit ball would travel, and getting set, I found myself remaining planted on the rubber, no better than a spectator, after the pitch.
            To compound matters, I’d been working on a new pitch. The past couple of weeks, while honing my curve ball, I discovered a sharp downward breaking ball. During batting practice, the new pitch proved devastating to right handed hitters, and frustrating for lefties. Cutting sharply inside and dropping with a wild spin, no one seemed to be able to strike the ball squarely. The best efforts of some of the most skillful hitters resulted in a bouncing hard grounder or a low line drive. A few were able to get the ball in the air. When they did, it usually went straight up for a short pop fly.
            Because of the propensity of even pull hitters to send the pitch back up the middle of the infield, I jokingly dubbed my new weapon my ‘come back pitch.’ During practice I threw out several surprised opponents at first base. My come back, often as not, came back right into my waiting glove.
            I worked on perfecting my new pitch. Slow pitch softball is far from an exact science. Tossing the oversized sphere at the proper height and arc, the ball falls victim to the slightest breeze. Sometimes you can make the wind work for you, bending an outside lob right into the face of an unsuspecting hitter, or cutting the edge of the plate. That is, if you are lucky. Otherwise, the best you can hope for is a corner plate strike. Knuckle balls, spinners and curve balls can also be used to thwart hitters, but are difficult to master. My ‘come back’ pitch had the added advantage of a fast, tight spin, making it extra difficult to place squarely on the bat.

             One of my heroes of the old time players is a pitcher for the hapless Washington Senators, nicked named ‘the Big Train.’ From around 1900 through the ‘20’s, Walter Johnson terrorized hitters with what most consider to be the fastest fast ball in the major leagues, then and since.

            How fast was Johnson’s fast ball?
            Consider Ray Chapman.
            Chapman once took first one, then a second blazing fast ball from the Big Train, Johnson. Stepping out of the batter’s box, the stunned hitter headed towards the dugout only to be reminded by the umpire he had another strike coming. Chapman continued on his way, calmly calling back over his shoulder, “Keep it. I don’t want it.”
            Perhaps the ill-fated Chapman should have taken the event as an omen. On October 10, 1920, while up at bat, Ray Chapman was struck and killed by a fast ball from pitcher Carl Mays.³

             We jumped out to a quick two run lead our first at bat. I managed to set down three of the four batters I faced in the bottom of the first, including a strike out. Our team went three up, three down, as did the opposition, in an uneventful second inning. We went up four to nothing with two more runs scored in the third off of left fielder Ron’s triple. The last of the third started off innocently enough with a routine pop fly. Then the bottom fell out. A single up the middle, a misplayed grounder followed by a line shot, and the bases were loaded. And the top of their lineup was coming to bat.

           It was time for some fancy arm work.
            It was time to try out the ‘come back.’
            The first pitch caught Alfredo, a good hitter, by surprise. Looking at first like it would fall short and outside, the ball veered sharply inside, slicing the edge of the plate. The look on his face was priceless.
            Ok… strike one…
            So far, so good...
            I gave him two junk pitches to think about, then another come back. It tipped off the edge of his bat and rolled harmlessly towards the mound, right to me. A quick throw home for the force and there were two outs.
            Franco wouldn’t be so easy. After a couple of called balls and a come back called strike, I gave him a sharply curving breaking pitch, thanks to a friendly cross breeze. He swung hard. But the backspin sent the ball straight up. It was caught by the catcher. Out number three and we were out of the inning. The come back had done its job.
            Our fourth inning produced a couple of hits but no runs. Then it was their turn again. And their three best sluggers were coming to bat.
            Jimmy is a strong pull hitter. He had managed a double and a triple off of me in other games. He wouldn’t bite on a short lob which fell ineffectually in front of the plate. My second pitch, a come back, he sent past me to my right. Our short stop bobbled the hard hit bouncing grounder, but managed to throw Jimmy out at first.
            Next was Jose, the team’s cleanup hitter and a threat to send one out anytime at bat. He’d gotten a deep dangerous fly off of me in the first inning which thankfully turned into a long out. I toyed with him best I could, giving him nothing to swing at until the count was three and two. Then he saw my come back. He not only saw it, but lined it like a rocket past me, the short stop and the infield for a double. My come back was earning its name. Those two shots should have told me something. They didn’t. I was still standing flat foot on the rubber.
            Bugara hits the ball probably as hard as humanly possible. His drives jump to the outfield before anyone has a chance to react. He once hit three tape measure homers over center field in three consecutive at bats in one game. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to foll around with him. Not with Jose at second and only one out. Even a sacrifice fly to the outfield would result in a run scoring. I took a deep breath, let it out, and tossed a come back.
            And it did…
            As best I can figure, the ball came off his bat and tipped off my glove in about half a second. That works out to something like 75 or 80 miles per hour.
            And there I stood.
            I raised my glove, but not quickly enough, not far enough.
            Victims of automobile accidents often report that at the moment of impact time seems to move in slow motion. I now understand what they experience. For one protracted fraction of a second time stood still. The din of the spectators faded to a distant thunder in my ears. My gloved hand crept skywards. It paused motionless in front of me about nose level. The dull white leather clad ball balanced precariously on the edge of the mitt’s webbing, frozen in space. One thought replayed in my mind over and over, like a stuck 45 RPM record: I’m not going to catch this.
            And then someone hit fast forward.
            The speeding projectile tipped off my glove, mercifully slowed slightly. It slammed into my face, catching the cheek bone and upper eye socket squarely with a brain jarring, sickening thud.

             I was helped off the field, still holding the bloody wad of tissue someone provided, against my eye brow. It is interesting and strange to note that I never experienced any major pain, especially considering the seriousness of the injury. At the time of the impact, I felt as if punched by a gloved boxer, more surprising than painful. After, a dull, achy throb and a feeling of pressure against the eye ball were the main discomforts. By morning, and for several weeks, the entire orbit around my right eye remained extremely tender, swollen and sore.

           It’s never a good sign when your attending physician grimaces at your injury. The swelling and discoloration were severe. For others it made looking at the damages more painful than the actual experience. After tolerating an hour of ice, the gash just below my eye brow was cleaned and stitched. A comprehensive exam commenced including x-rays and a lot of discomforting prodding and poking. The doc said keeping the badly swollen and bruised eye socket well iced may have helped saved my sight. I was released with anti-biotic and strict orders to keep my eye iced constantly for the next twenty four hours. Two days later an optimistic optometrist said he could find no permanent damage, thank God. But I wasn’t out of the woods yet. He told me it would be weeks, maybe more, before the long term affects of such an injury could be determined.

             In the ‘60’s, Tony Conigliaro was well on his way to a hall of fame career. Joining the Boston Red Sox in 1964, in just a few seasons, the twenty two year old right fielder hit an amazing 104 home runs, running up 294 RBIs, with a .276 average.

            On August 18, 1967, Tony C came to bat in the fifth inning against California Angel’s pitcher Jack Hamilton. A fast ball, estimated near 100 MPH, struck Conigliaro in the left cheek bone. The impact shattered his eye socket and permanently damaged his left eye.
            Conigliaro was carried off the field on a stretcher. It wasn’t immediately known if he would survive the injury. Tony survived and returned to the Red Sox in 1969, moving to the Angel’s in 1971. After three disappointing seasons, it was evident the damage done on that August night on 1967 was too great, and he retired.
            Tony C suffered a massive heart attack and stroke in 1982 which left him in a vegetative state. The one time Cooperstown bound slugger passed away shortly after his 45^th birthday in 1990.⁴

             Sunday, October 14^th. It was too soon. I knew it was too soon. The days were growing short, the air chilly. Softball would be ending. I wasn’t about to spend the winter wondering how it would feel; wondering if I would pitch again; if I could pitch again.

           Outwardly, my eye was healing quickly. All that remained was some discoloration and a forming scar where the stitching of the ball cut me.
            But that was on the outside.
            The pressure on my eyeball subsided, returning from time to time. And my depth perception was nearly normal. At least that’s what I told myself. But I was starting to be bothered by sparks of light, flashes they are called, and they can be harbingers of more serious problems to come.
            Still, I was determined; stubborn.
            For the first time in my life, nervousness and doubt accompanied me to the mound. Doing my best to shake the feeling, I steeled up some counterfeit courage and took my warm up pitches.
            Not bad…
            Not good either…
            Then again, a four week layoff will rust up anybody’s arm. Even without a batter to face, I found myself purposely avoiding the pitch that had nearly blinded me. It’s too soon I rationalized. Just stick with the basics.
            It did little to easy my churning stomach.
            The first hitter of the game dug into the batter’s box. A familiar, reassuring voice reached me from left field. It was my friend Ron. “Give ‘em the old ‘come back,’ Billy!”
            And so I did.

 

1. Cahan, Richard and Jacob, Mark, The Game That Was, p. 230
2. Cahan, Richard and Jacob, Mark, The Game That Was, p. 231
3. Cahan, Richard and Jacob, Mark, The Game That Was, pp. 24, 138
4. David Eisenthal, davideinsenthal.typepad.com