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I wish I had known him these past eight years and vice versa. He would have been there in the stands to witness my final game.
My final game … I’m so in the zone while I jog that the music in my ears literally turns into the roar of the stadium that fateful day when my career ended.
It ended with a slide into home. We won the game, but I lost everything.
Why did I come into home base so fucking hard and do this to myself? It was the angle, I think. Or maybe the sheer force. Or the slightly looser left cleat than the right one. I remember.
Or maybe the clumpy dirt beneath said cleats.
Or some dude in the front row whose odd hooting somehow reached my ears through all of the thousands in the crowd.
A million little distractions chased me in slo-mo as I darted for home. The worst of which was that weird way the shortstop on the other team looked at me, like he thought I was checking out his ass from first base or something. It made me think of all my other teammates and the weird looks I’d get from time to time.
Were they thinking things about me?
Was I?
Then I slid too late. The catcher was ready to take me out. My leg twisted and tore apart inside, but I wouldn’t know that until later. When I was sliding, I only knew something was wrong—excruciatingly wrong—but all I did was grit my teeth and bear the pain as my cleat hit that base.
“SAFE!”
My team screamed with victory. I screamed in agony.
Celebrations ensued, but I had nothing to celebrate except the end of my career. That seemed to be a strange concept none of my teammates understood. They were all so damned caught up in the excitement of ending the season on a high note that none of them realized I wasn’t celebrating with them.
Not many options to celebrate when you’re in a hospital bed being told all about the physical therapy you’re about to endure.
Fast forward to the first moment I visited home that summer and my mother coddled me while I pegged my way all over the house, the crutch sounding like I was squashing the life out of a cockroach every time I took a step. My brother Rudy kept giving me these looks all the time, like he wanted to tell me how sorry he was for what I was going through, but didn’t have the words. He seemed to hate himself for it, scowling and brooding around the house in spite of his good intentions.
But it didn’t match how much I hated myself.
After I was off the crutches, I flew back up to north Texas, met with my buddies, and we trained hard in the field. My leg felt different. I kept playing it cautious, slowing down when I felt the slightest pinch of pain. I couldn’t keep up. I had used to be a lightning bolt before that fateful slide home. After the injury, I was just a rumble in the sky that people ignored.
No one cowers from a little distant thunder; they’re stunned by the electric show of lightning before their eyes.
And my light was out.
“Baker, you’ll get better,” my teammates would assure me with their empty eyes. “Just push yourself. Train harder.”
The more I pushed, though, the more my damaged leg pushed back. It was like trying to run with lead in my thighs. It was like having three tiny adorable nieces and nephews clinging to your legs and laughing while you tried to walk.
Except you also hated them. And you sure as fuck weren’t laughing. And you wished them dead and gone.
Not quite how I’d feel about real nieces and nephews, if my brother happens to meet a nice gal and pop out some little ones.
It turns out that at one of the games I was supposed to play—but didn’t because I was busy enjoying my own agony in a hospital after my injury—a few important people were in the stands. Those important people saw my fellow teammate Adam on that field.
He was playing my position of shortstop.
The spotlight was on him that game—the spotlight that would have been on me, the spotlight I’d been waiting for.
I should have known he would be happy about my injury.
Adam was my fellow teammate who was as hungry to make it to the major leagues as I was. Despite throwing me friendly smiles and encouraging words, the truth was never lost on me: he was my rival, and if he had to take a lead pipe to my knee to advance his own career, he wouldn’t even flinch or lose a wink of sleep.
Looks like I did the job for him.
I’m still jogging through Ryan’s neighborhood, but I stop at an intersection, unsure which way to go. My leg is cramping up, but I choose to ignore it. I choose to fight through it.
