The Baseball Game

 

An accident at one of our local baseball games resulting from a good hit I got ended our game abruptly. Here’s the story.

 

 

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The Baseball Game

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Down behind our house on Stark Street, there was a baseball field with a back stop for the kids that lived in the neighborhood to play baseball. When I was about 13, we had a good game going and I had been hitting the ball good all afternoon. The Malone brothers including Walter, Bill, Bobby, and others from up on Trower Street were on one team and the Stark Street boys were on the other.

 

 

 

The Malone boys were all big guys and had a reputation of being a little bit mean. We had been playing a while and we were tied at 3 to 3 and I was up to bat next with two outs. Bobby Malone was pitching and Bill Malone was catching. Bobby Malone wound up and threw me a hard fast ball right across the middle of the plate. I could see it was going to be a good pitch to hit, so I took my best swing at it and I hit the ball squarely right in the middle. The ball headed straight for the pitcher, Bobby, and it hit him right between the eyes. Bobby dropped straight to his knees and then down on his face on the ground. We all ran over to him and rolled him over and he was out cold. You could see the impression of the threads that held the cover on the ball in a perfect pattern between his eyes. The two older brothers picked him up and carried him off of the ball field and on to their home. I really felt bad about the ball hitting him, but I certainly couldn’t control where the ball was going to go.

 

Hey Billy boy, try to hit this fast ball. All right look out Bobby, it’s coming right back at you in a ball of fire.

 

 

 

I guess Bobby survived the ordeal as I saw him a school on Monday and he seemed to be doing okay other than the fact that both eyes were black.. I was a little nervous about the two older brothers as they gave me angry looks every time they saw me for about a month after that, but they never did me any harm.

 

 

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So the ball game between the Stark Street boys and the Trower Street boys ended in a tie that was never resolved. They never challenged us again.

 

 

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Thanks for reading The Baseball Game,
Bill