Stan catches one in the face

Baseball can be a dangerous game. Some have died even.

            A baseball is hard and only 9 inches in circumference. A pitcher can throw a pitch 100 miles an hour, though this is rare. Major leaguers are clocked in the nineties, and only a change-up will dip into the low eighties. A pitch thrown at ninety mph can come back to the pitcher faster than it was thrown.

            A bat is made of wood, hard wood, and is an incredible weapon if so desired. The prison no longer allows bats to be on the grounds; our coaches have to bring them in for every game and practice–and leave with them.

            More injuries occur when a ball is hit of course, or in trying to catch them. Baseball requires a complicated set of skills; running, throwing, sliding, hitting are only the tip of the ice berg. These may come in combinations and quickly forcing the body’s joints, ligaments, tendons, and muscles to extreme stress. Our seventeen man Giants team has anywhere from one to five players with some kind of injury.

            One law of baseball is when you are on the field, or near it, keep your eye on the ball. Stan failed to keep the rule.

            Every other Monday evening the Giants get the field for a practice; the A’s get the next Monday and so on. Due to injuries there were two guys working out at new positions. Mike Tyler was at first, a position he had never played before, and Duck Harris was at second, just coming back from surgery to his left thumb. They needed practice and I was hitting them ground balls with Frankie Smith catching for me.

The baseball diamond is situated so that the sun goes down behind right field, a little to the right of Mt. Tamalpais, which can be seen from the field. Stan wanted to talk to Frankie, no doubt dealing with some issue, and he simply walked up to him while Mike made a throw in from first base. Mike’s throw was high and off target. Bang it hit Stan in his right, just a smidgen above it, and down Stan went.

Stan is seventy-five at least, strong, wiry, good shape, but down he went. The ball was not thrown terribly hard, but there Stan was lying almost on home plate in the dust and there was blood. I flung my bat in the dirt, not sure why I did that, must have been frustration, and I knelt beside Stan. I looked to find Mike and could not. Turned out he went immediately to dugout and sat down.

When blood is spilled it is a big deal at the prison. An officer, who knew Stan well, rushed over and called for a medic. I made a quick exam and thought it was no big deal, but who knew. Protocols took over and Stan would have to go to the hospital, not the prison hospital, but Marin General in Greenbrae and for reasons I am not sure of.

Stan complied as he was a little shaken up by the blow to the head, and he said he would call his wife Alberta to meet him at the hospital. Off he went then and the practice proceeded.

Mike, not a starter, very fleet of foot but a terrible base runner, did not get in too many games. He would mope around sometimes, and at times I thought he might quit the team, but he held on. His sport is football and he had played on the flag football team I had started some years earlier, The Blues Brothers, and would play for my son Vern who was now running that team. But baseball–Mike mostly sat on the bench.           

One look at him and it was plain he was thunder struck by what happened. Mike was one of Stan’s favorites and vice versa. Mike felt so bad all he would do was sit and look glum.

Practice ends right about 7:30 and Stan had been transported to the hospital at about 6. Just as we were packing up, all of a sudden there was a commotion at the entrance to the dugout. It was Stan, he was back, bandage over his eye and forehead, but there he was and he was hugging Mike. And there were tears in Mike’s eyes but a big smile on his face. Stan and Mike were actually jumping up and down together. Quite a scene.

I caught part of the conversation between the two. Mike was apologizing, Stan was telling him it was okay, assuring Mike that it was a pure accident and that he never should have been on the field talking to Frankie in the first place.

Stan, the retired cop, had arrested plenty of black kids like Mike during his career. Mike had no doubt hated, and feared of course, white cops growing up as a gang banger in the Bay Area. The old white cop and the young black banger. Stan told me later as we were going up cardiac hill that he would never forget the tears in Mike’s eyes.