Ray & Me Read Free Page A

batter smacks a grounder to third. What do you do?”
    â€œThat’s easy,” I said. “I glove the ball and step on third to force out the lead runner. If there’s time, I throw to second for the double play.”
    â€œWhy not go for a triple play?” the doctor asked.
    â€œYou said there was one out before the ball was hit,” I told him. “There can’t be a triple play.”
    â€œVery sharp,” Dr. Wright said. “What if you’re playing second base? Runner on first. One out. Grounder to your right.”
    â€œI scoop it up and flip the ball to the shortstop covering second,” I told him. “He throws to first to complete the double play.”
    â€œGood,” Dr. Wright said. “Now tell me this. Why isit quicker to run from first base to second than it is to run from second base to third?”
    He had me there. The distance between the bases is identical, of course. There was no reason why it should take longer or shorter to run between any two bases.
    â€œUh, I don’t know,” I admitted.
    â€œBecause there’s a short stop in the middle,” the doctor said, throwing back his head with laughter. “Get it? Short stop?”
    I got it. It was the oldest baseball joke in the book. How could I forget it?
    â€œYou’ll be out of here in no time,” said Dr. Wright.
    â€œWill I be a hundred percent normal again?” I asked.
    â€œYes, but do us all one favor, Joe.”
    â€œWhat?” I asked.
    â€œStick with shortstop,” he said. “You make a lousy pitcher.”

4
The Best Pitcher I Never Heard of
    I FELT LIKE I WAS ALL BETTER , BUT D R . W RIGHT INSISTED that I stay in the hospital for a few days so he could keep an eye on me. It was hard to sleep in that bed, and the food was terrible; but at least I had some visitors. A bunch of the guys on my team crowded into the room and had a great time making fun of my bald head. Instead of a get well card, they gave me the ball that hit me. Everybody signed it too. Nice!
    Just before visiting hours were over, the kid who hit the ball, Cameron Considine, showed up. He came with his parents. Cameron was all remorseful and apologetic, but I told him to forget about it. He didn’t mean to hit me. Accidents happen in sports.
    I’m not sure I convinced him that it wasn’t his fault. He was still quiet and kept his head down when he left.
    There was nothing good on TV, so I started looking through those articles my mom had clipped from the newspapers. It turns out I wasn’t the only pitcher to get hurt by a batted ball. In 2005, near Chicago, a kid named Bill Kalant was pitching, and he got hit in the head by a line drive. He was in a coma for two weeks, just like me. In 2006, a 12-year-old New Jersey boy named Steven Domalewski got hit in the chest with a ball, and it stopped his heart for a while. Domalewski lived; but his brain was damaged, and he’s paralyzed.
    In 2003, a pitcher in Montana named Brandon Patch died after getting hit in the head by a batted ball. The same thing happened in 2007 to a minor-league first base coach in Arkansas. In fact, between 1991 and 2001, 17 baseball players were killed by batted balls. So I was lucky.
    What happened to these other guys apparently had sparked a big discussion about metal baseball bats. Back in the old days, bats were only made out of wood, of course. Aluminum and other metal bats started showing up in the 1970s. They don’t break as easily as wood bats, and they have a bigger sweet spot. They’re also lighter, so you can swing them faster. And if you swing a bat faster, you can hit the ball harder. Everybody knows that.
    Because of what happened to kids like me, some leagues have switched back to wooden bats. In 2007, North Dakota banned metal bats at high school games entirely.
    I was reading about all this stuff when I noticed somebody standing at the door. I looked up and saw my coach, Flip