15-Year-Old Dies Playing Game He Loves

KAAL ^ | 05/25/2015

[Hatteras]

Very unfortunate and sad. I pray for the youngster and his family. In regards to the headline, I am pretty certain however, that if he had survived, baseball would no longer have been “the game he loves”.

As a yute, I couldn’t get enough of the game. However, playing both second base and catching, damn, if those bad hops and wild pitches didn’t wear me down after a while. And then to top it off, I was brought in to pitch once because we ran out of pitchers. Crouching behind the plate is a piece of cake comparatively speaking. Leaving yourself that vulnerable, standing so close in front of the batter, I no longer loved the game as much as I thought. As a pitcher, the ball goes a whole lot faster coming out than it does going in.

[Anoreth]

But not death.
I see.

[Rockingham]

I did not mean to contradict you. My intention was only to shed some light on the subject. Permit me to tell of the experience that led me to think that it matters.

Some years ago -- okay, decades, to be candid -- I happened to chat with an older woman at a local political event. She was the mother of a friend and, a couple of weeks later, I was invited to dinner at their house. As my friend explained, his mother was still mourning the death of his sister, M., so expect to hear the story and see some tears.

It was a good dinner and a soul-wrenching evening. The young woman -- who had died of a brain aneurysm -- was only 25 and stunningly beautiful and intelligent. On a Saturday afternoon, M. developed a massive headache, argued with her husband about going to the hospital ER, and when taken the next day, was soon unconscious and on life support. M. died several days later.

Her mother was stricken by a deep sense of loss and of the unfairness of the death of her daughter, with guilt from wondering if M. might have died because of some lapse in her upbringing or because something genetic from her mother was defective. M.'s husband was also there for dinner and he was consumed by guilt over feeling that M. might have lived if he had taken her to the hospital ER as soon as her headache had begun.

Medically, as the doctors explained, there was no cause for blame. My comment was that it was misplaced grief that was leading M.s mother and husband to think otherwise and that they were not being fair to themselves. Mourn that M. is gone, I said, but do not let it be about you by blaming yourselves. Now tell me what she was like -- and that got me crying as well.

As for the young baseball player, he too will be mourned by family and friends, likely with an unjustified load of guilt falling on the batter whose hit ball struck the boy down. Even if that hit triggered the aneurysm, the point must be made strongly that the cause was a natural defect in an artery that gave out, not that he was playing baseball and got hit with the ball when it happened.

I hope that someone will read this and find it applicable to their own circumstances.

[ETL]

I remember in Jr high our dopey gym teacher had us stand in a line along the 3rd base line waiting to bat. One day a teammate of mine sharply pulls a ball down the 3rd base line and the large ‘softball’ (not so soft!) hits me square in the eye! The nurse gave me an icepack and sent me home (alone). I remember being very disorientated and dizzy on the mile plus walk home. I was 13 or 14 at the time, and the year was 1970 or 71. Imagine if such a thing happened today. My parents probably could have sued the city for a million bucks.