CATCH OF THE YEAR-OFF HIS HEAD!

     Before the baseball season gets totally ,here's a story you might like. Again, we're in the late 1950's at dear old Laurel High!

     Baseball was not my cup of tea. I only played my freshman and sophomore year. There was this one event that was worth noting.

     The first thing was that we had a senior pitcher, Paul Mann, who could throw a baseball mighty fast. If you were an outfielder like me, you could almost sit down and eat grass because Paul would strike out most batters 1-2-3! I do remember standing at the plate ready to hit against Paul in practice one time. Here came this this big wide curve-ball right at me. I backed out of the way, but, of course it came back across the plate for a strike. No way could I stand in there knowing or not knowing it was going to hit me.

     My claim to fame on one particular game when I was playing right field. A class-mate and center fielder was Jim Latham. A fly ball was hit to Jim for what appeared to be and would normally be an easy out.

     Jim ran up to catch the ball and stepped into a chuck hole. Our playing field was far from perfect in those days. The ball hit him right on the head, but because, for a change, I did the right thing by backing him up, the ball bounced right off his head into my glove for the out.  If only that could have been televised, it would have made replays on ESPN.

     originally written March 2008.