As opposed to a lazy fly ball that drops lightly into the stands, the lefty Joc ripped a low, wicked line drive screamer that had a hideous, malicious amount of spin which motivated many fans to scatter for cover. Some fans were manufactured from sturdier stock:
Pederson's thunderbolt began its malevolent approach to my right but was rapidly curving towards me like a heat-seeking missile. Reacting solely on reflexes honed on the dusty ball fields of Reily Elementary, I raised my glove and brought it across my chest, reaching to backhand the hurtling horsehide. Seemingly countless calculations of wind, elevation, trajectory, radii, coefficients of drag and yaw-rates - among others - triggered my legs to flex as my ocular receptors observed deleterious effects gravitational forces were having on trajectory. I think I just explained that the ball was sinking fast. So fast, I wasn't certain that it had the legs to reach my position and so to better position myself I began to lower my whole body. I was seated in Seat 3, third from the aisle with Lou to my left in Seat 4. Seat 2 in the row directly ahead of me had for several long minutes been vacated by the wife of the fan seated on the aisle creating a fortuitous gap, practically right in front of me, among the excited fans. It was into this gap, lower and to my right, that I reached, making a valiant attempt to backhand the sinking line drive. Hands of fans went up, obscuring my field of vision. After the fact, I learned that in lunging to my right I had blasted the Reds fan seated directly next to me, a six and a half foot linebacker with 50+ pounds of muscle on me, spilling his full cup of beer tither and yon. Mostly upon me. I stabbed at the ball and got leather on it but, in deflecting off the outstretched hands of others, the baseball's last-second line of descent was vectored too rapidly for me to fully adjust and the ball tipped off the fingers of my baseball glove. Bouncing off my glove, the ball fell straight down onto the concrete floor of the row ahead of me, into the space vacated by the absent fan in Seat 2. The ball bounded upward but hit the underside of the empty seat, deadening the last remnants of its malicious energy, and the baseball came to rest there under Seat 2. Having been in the physical act of lunging that direction, I dove over the seatbacks of the row ahead of me and, with my free right hand, quickly reached for the ball. A vicious scrum ensued, worthy of Roman gladiators. I got my hand on the ball but before I could clasp the sphere tightly a fellow combatant pounded my arm, knocking the ball free.
But only for an instant.
With bodies crashing down on top of me, and with cat-like reflexes, I re-aligned my arm, grasped the ball and gripped it as tightly as was humanly possible. With this death-grip applied, and me in a nearly upside down position, I began to become extracted from the scrum by Lou who was pulling me up, over the seatbacks, into my own row and into an upright position on my feet. As I regained my feet, I turned slowly towards Lou and showed him the Home Run Derby baseball.
Heroic victory was mine!
As was the baseball commemorating the 30th anniversary HR Derby:
The gentleman you see in the gray, collared shirt turned up at the next night's 86th All-Star Game with a finger in splint, the digit having been fractured in the Joc Pederson HR Derby melee. I myself had an array of - in some instances, baffling - contusions:
My right kneecap and shin evidently blasted a seatback. Or, perhaps, my knee was ground into the concrete.
My right forearm (above) displayed the crushing force which it was subjected to by the scrum of fans reaching - and battling - for the baseball.
My left forearm (above) had contusions on opposites sides. The cause of these two bruises remains unknown. However, the greatest mystery of all my injuries was found on the upper portion of my right calf, just below the knee:
On the back of my right knee..... I'm at a loss for explaining this massive deep tissue bruise. And while I'm not a board-certified physician..... yet .....the pattern of bruising around the break in my skin leads me to think that was a puncture wound. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
So I paid for my Home Run Derby baseball. And I did so by subjecting myself to and withstanding forces which would destroy weaker men.
It would have been so much easier - and painless - to just have caught the blasted thing.
Soon thereafter, I also discovered that my nifty All-Star Game lanyard - a Christmas 2014 gift from My Dear Elderly Mother - also was in a damaged state:
The metal clip had torn through the lanyard's central eye hole requiring me to reattach through an adjacent opening. This lanyard was tucked in under my shirt throughout the hand-to-hand combat, further illustrating the immense forces I had been subjected to and conquered!
Roll the credits!
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