I got hit in the face with a baseball when I was a child. It was a fast pitch game. It was the first pitch of the game from a player that had seemingly entered puberty three years before any other player in the league. He wound up, and struck me squarely below my right eye (I'm a lefty). After that historical baseball moment, I developed an abnormal fear of taking another baseball to the face. I played out the season, but each time I was pitched to...I took a step backward out of the box. I went the season with a whopping zero hits, four walks and a weekly encouragement from the coach about being less timid in the box. Whatever! The guy is throwing a big, white rock at my head. The smart thing to do is to get out of the way of the rock! This is simply logical. Needless to say, my baseball playing career lasted one season.
As an adult, I look back and see the shortcoming of those adults around me that allowed me to end the season without facing this fear. I needed to hit a ball. I needed to be hit by the ball again and feel how it didn't really hurt that bad. I needed to face the pitcher and the pitch and swing away...choked up...eyes on the ball...hips turning...and POP! There is a valuable life lesson in facing the wild pitches of prepubescent, gangly pitchers with no control...
Those pitchers turn into business men, doctors, construction workers, policemen, supervisors and IT specialists (well...maybe not IT specialists). Those wild pitches keep coming at a man's head all through life. The one thing that is not possible is to continuously "back out of the batter's box." Life is too hard, and too short to constantly fear being hit by the ball. A man has to toughen up and stand in there.
A man has to stand in there even when he knows he's about to get clobbered by a wild pitch.
alright. I'm done. You may go now.
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