Tag Archive for James Preller baseball

INJURY REPORT: Everything Was Great Until I Got Hit in the Face with a Baseball


IMG_3351True story: I was having a wonderful time in Clearwater, Florida, playing for the Albany Capitals in a men’s 50-up hardball tournament. The team had rented condos on the beach, I had a great view from my balcony, the fields were pristine, I was playing reasonably okay.

I was the crafty lefty who could still get batters out with an array of slop. Hey, that’s not a terrible thing.

Down the right field line: The scene of my misadventure.

Down the right field line: The scene of my misadventure.

 

All smiles before the game. I had to get a photo of this teammate, who we called "ZZ" for obvious reasons.

All smiles before the game. I had to get a photo of this teammate, who we called “ZZ” for obvious reasons.

And then, while playing RF at beautiful Spectrum Field (home of the Phillies A-level minor league team), I ran a long way to field a fly ball on the line. I got there but lost the ball in the lights at the last moment. And wham, the ball hit me directly in the face. I was stunned and embarrassed and deeply concerned about my health. It reach for my nose; it was still there. I felt blood pooling in my mouth. The roof of my mouth seemed wholly altered. I checked for my teeth. And I did not wonder, not for one second, what happened to the baseball or the baserunners or the score of the game. I just wanted to be okay.

Minutes later, I was on the bench, spitting out huge amounts of blood, grateful that I still had my teeth. For the moment, at least. Next I took a trip to Urgent Care. One nurse looked at me, said, “Oh my gosh,” and sent me to the hospital. They insisted I spend the night. CT scans, and so on.

 

 

The game was at a "real" minor league field. Sweet dugouts with a tunnel that led to indoor batting cages and locker rooms. I took this photo a few minutes after sitting on the bench, spitting blood, dazed and down-hearted.

The game was at a “real” minor league field. Sweet dugouts with a tunnel that led to indoor batting cages and locker rooms. I took this photo a few minutes after sitting on the bench, spitting blood, dazed and down-hearted.

The next day, after an overnight in the hospital — fearing these Florida doctors, who didn’t seem to know anything — who kept talking about “pulling teeth” and “multiple fractures” and “possible bleeding in my brain” — I flew back home to NY for a hasty visit with an oral surgeon.

Goodbye Florida, three nights early. It was totally great until it suddenly so wasn’t.

Yesterday, with my wife at my side, the evaluation was far more optimistic than I’d been led to believe. Overall, no structural damage. My cheekbones, my jaw, good. My upper palate suffered some trauma but should heal itself. Some teeth might not make it, but maybe they will. Soft foods for next 10 days. We’ll wait and see how the body reacts.

View from my balcony, shared with 3 other teammates.

View from my balcony, shared with 3 other teammates.

I didn’t lose an eye. Whatever is broken can be repaired. I’m okay. Amazingly.

I caught a baseball with my face and I’m going to be perfectly fine.

So now I am left feeling sheepish, a little humiliated. The day before, I had pitched a solid game against a very good team, leaving in the 8th inning with a slim lead. The story in my head was a good one. I was 56 years old, having a great time in Florida, still competing, still a semi-athlete who can help his team win games. The next day I’m knocked down in the outfield, the ball is bouncing away, and I’m wondering what in the world I’m doing out here. Playing the outfield under the stupid lights. I hadn’t played a night game in over 17 years. I always play in natural light. My eyes are failing. I’m getting old and diminished. Who was I fooling?

I felt, right then, like an idiot. Ashamed. Never again, I thought to myself.

And yet 24 hours earlier, my story was completely different. Which one was true? Which image of myself was accurate?

I think in the end both narratives are true. Like Whitman said, I am large; I contain multitudes. I’m both things, the still-good player and the diminished fool with failing eyes and lost skills. I got injured and it was completely my fault. No one to blame but myself.

So now I’m home with a sore face and luscious, full lips. I might finally lose that last 5 pounds I’ve been unable to take off. I’ll work on Monday. And we’ll see how it goes.

Life turns on a dime, doesn’t it?

A quick snap back when everything was going great, glad to be exactly in that spot, preparing to play another ballgame.

A quick snap back when everything was going great, glad to be exactly in that spot, preparing to play another ballgame.

 

FAN MAIL WEDNESDAY #246: Baseball, Mostly, and the Undead

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Let’s do this people. Here’s Nate from Haverford:

 

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I replied:

Dear Nate,

Thank you for your letter all the way from Haverford, PA. It’s an honor to be thought of as your favorite author.

Am I good at baseball? Ha, well, not particularly. But I do love the game, and I still love playing it. I now play in a ridiculous 55-up men’s hardball league. Imagine very old guys who can barely move attempting to play baseball — like trying to walk through a room full of Jell-O — and that’s us. But there we are under the sun, playing in the green fields of the mind, as if we were boys again. I can still steal a base, I can still break off a pretty good curveball (okay, it rolls in like a tumbleweed), I can still hit.

paperback-cover-six-inningsThe other part I love is the competition. As a hitter, to come up in that big spot and try my absolute best to beat the other guy. And that feeling when the ball jumps off the sweet spot of the bat into the left-center gap? I love that. I’ll play for as long as I’m able. Why not?

Have you read my book Six Innings? I poured all my love for baseball into that book.

As the youngest in a large family, I always sought those quiet places, tucked out of the way. I did a lot of jigsaw puzzles (thus: “Jigsaw Jones”), invented games with dice, drew pictures, and read (a little bit). Reading didn’t come on strong until later. Making comics just happened naturally. I think creative people are like that. We can’t help but make things, throw ideas up into the sky just to see what falls.

IMG_2295This October I have a new book coming out, Better Off Undead, that’s set in the not-too-distant future. It might be right for a reader like you. To sum it up in one sentence: After becoming undead, Adrian Lazarus has to survive middle school. The book is also concerned with bees and bullies and spy drones and climate change, and there are “thriller/detective” elements and evil billionaires too. I’m excited about it. The book’s not scary, but I do hope it’s smart, timely, and wildly entertaining.

My best,

James Preller

P.S. Thank you for the SASE, very considerate & much appreciated!

Fan Mail Wednesday #242: Letter from a Father Who Reads to His Teenage Daughter Every Night

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Today’s “Fan Mail Wednesday” is a little unusual. It’s a note from Ed, my teammate on the “Whiz Kids,” an old men’s hardball team. To date, he remains the only catcher who believes in my change-up.

 

Mighty Preller at the Bat.

Mighty Preller at the Bat.

 

Jim,
I hope you’re having a great off season. My daughter and I have a reading streak. My wife saw an article in the NYT about a father who read out loud to his daughter every night from grade 4 to her freshman year in college for at least 10 minutes. Kelsey and I decided to take on the challenge when she was in third grade. She is now a freshman at AAG . We have not missed a night. It the most special thing between us. We have read all kinds of books. We both get to make picks so I picked The Fall.


9781250090546.IN01It is a great book. As we read it I expected Kelsey to have strong opinions about Sam and Morgan and the actions of the other kids. Each night as we read the book she was very quiet and just went to sleep.


This all changed when Sam bought the jewelry for Morgan and dropped it off the tower. When I looked up Kelsey was crying. She had never done that before. At this point all her feelings about Sam and Morgan tumbled out. We had a great talk. She loved the book.

I know at times writing must be hard as you wonder who will read your book and how will it impact the reader. At our house The Fall was a perfect game. ED

 

I replied:

Ed,
Sorry it’s taken me a couple of days to respond. It’s hard to know what to say except for thank you for those kind words. It’s the nicest gift you can give a writer: 1) reading the book, and 2) saying something nice about it.
 
I remember reading about the young woman who read with her father that you referred to in your note. I think I might even have blogged about it, years ago. It’s amazing that you and your daughter have managed that same feat. I’m blessed to have (sort of) shared that experience with you, through my book.
The article was published in March 2010, written by Michael Winerip, titled "Father and Daughter Bond By Years of Reading." The daughter, Alice Ozma, eventually wrote a book about it, THE READING PROMISE: MY FATHER, AND THE BOOKS WE SHARED.

The article was published in March 2010, written by Michael Winerip, titled “Father and Daughter Bond By Years of Reading.” The daughter, Alice Ozma, eventually wrote a book about it, THE READING PROMISE: MY FATHER, AND THE BOOKS WE SHARED.

 
Thanks again,  Ed. I was moved by your letter. And I look forward to another season of baseball.
 
My best,
 
JP

TRANSCRIPTION: “Going Home” by A. Bartlett Giamatti (On Baseball, The Odyssey, and Returning Home)

Many years ago, in 1989 in fact, I enjoyed the memorable experience of attending a public reading at Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York. The program was a special evening in Selected Shorts history, created by Roger Angell and A Bartlett Giamatti, who was soon to assume his duties as Commissioner of Baseball. I still remember the evening vividly, the great selections and talented readers. Years later I tracked down the CD compilation and highly recommend it. Some of my favorite stories from that night include John Updike’s, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” W.P. Kinsella’s “The Thrill of the Grass,” T.C. Boyle’s hilarious “The Hector Quesadilla Story,” and Giamatti’s classic, “The Green Fields of the Mind.”

51gxcjdkowl_sl500_aa300_piaudiblebottomright1373_aa300_I was recently reminded of some musings by Giamatti about the nature of baseball, and specifically how the game relates to the idea — the concept, the notion, the pull — of home. His ideas suddenly seemed vitally important to me, helpful to something I was (and still am) writing. So I found the track in my iTunes Library, listened and listened again while transcribing word for word. Here I offer you that one three-minute preamble — words that struck me, and have stuck with me, for more than 20 years. Now, hopefully, a lasting internet artifact.

Please note that I endeavored to transcribe his words faithfully and accurately. The punctuation is my own, faithful to my own ear and to what I imagine to be, perhaps, Mr. Giamatti’s own predelictions, though I’m sure he would have managed the lineup differently. Any sloppiness to these sentences is entirely, I think, due to context. He was speaking from notes, as I recall, but the expression was primarily oral, not written. Thoughts are not always “complete,” as it were.

A. Bartlett Giamatti, scholar and former Commissioner of Baseball.

A. Bartlett Giamatti, scholar and former Commissioner of Baseball.

 

“There is no great long poem about baseball. It may be that baseball is itself its own great long poem. This had occurred to me in the course of my wondering why home plate wasn’t called fourth base. And then it came to me: Why not? Meditate on the name for a moment. Home.

Home is an English word virtually impossible to translate into other tongues. No translation catches the associations, the mixture of memory and longing, the sense of security and autonomy, the accessibility, the aroma of inclusiveness, the freedom from wariness, that cling to the word home, that are absent from ‘house’ or even ‘my house.’ Home is a concept, not a place, a state of mind where self-definition starts; it is origins. A mix of time and place and smell and weather wherein one first realizes that one is an original — perhaps like others, especially those one loves, but discreet, distinct, not to be copied. Home is where one first learned to be separate, and it remains in the mind as the place where reunion, if it were ever to occur, would happen.

So of course home drew Odysseus , who then set off again because it isn’t necessary to be in a specific place, in a house or a town, to be one who has gone home. So home is the goal rarely glimpsed, and almost never attained, of all the heroes descended from Odysseus . All literary romance, all Romance Epic, derives from The Odyssey and it is about going home. It is about rejoining, the rejoining of beloved, rejoining of parent to child, the rejoining of land to its rightful owner or rule. Romance is about putting things right after some tragedy has put them asunder. It is about restoration of the right relations among things. And going home is where that restoration occurs because that’s where it matters most.

Baseball is of course entirely about going home. And to that extent, because it is the only game you ever heard of where you want to get back to where you started (all the other games are territorial; you want to get his or her territory; not baseball). Baseball simply wants to get you from here back around to here, and that I think is why baseball is its own long poem, its own endless epic. We’ll come back again to this later. What we’re going to engage in now however is the way in which baseball, while it has never given itself to the literary expression that is as epic as its own unfolding, is clearly, in a game that recommences with every pitch, superbly fitted to the short poem. To the quick burst, for the shot. And we have three distinguished readers and three distinguished poets who have written quite remarkable, both descriptive and analytic, poems about baseball.”

The poems that were read following Giamatti’s introduction were: “Polo Grounds” by Rolfe Humphries, “Pitcher” and “Base Stealer” by Robert Francis, and “Cobb Would Have Caught It” by Robert Fitzgerald.

Robert Fitzgerald, “Cobb Would Have Caught It”

In sunburnt parks where Sundays lie,
Or the wide wastes beyond the cities,
Teams in grey deploy through sunlight.

Talk it up, boys, a little practice.

Coming in stubby and fast, the baseman
Gathers a grounder in fat green grass,
Picks it stinging and clipped as wit
Into the leather: a swinging step
Wings it deadeye down to first.
Smack. Oh, attaboy, attyoldboy.

Catcher reverses his cap, pulls down
Sweaty casque, and squats in the dust:
Pitcher rubs new ball on his pants,
Chewing, puts a jet behind him;
Nods past batter, taking his time.
Batter settles, tugs at his cap:
A spinning ball: step and swing to it,
Caught like a cheek before it ducks
By shivery hickory: socko, baby:
Cleats dig into dust. Outfielder,
On his way, looking over shoulder,
Makes it a triple. A long peg home.

Innings and afternoons. Fly lost in sunset.
Throwing arm gone bad. There’s your old ball game.
Cool reek of the field. Reek of companions.

Also of note: The Poetry Foundation, where I signed up for spectacular email updates,  recently provided a link to a sweet collection of baseball poems. Click here and start running around the bases . . . Lots of good poems there, even some home runs.

Everything Was Swell Until the 6th Inning

I came across a photo today and figured I’d tell you about it. Blog fodder, you know.

This is me five years ago, after throwing batting practice on a hot night:

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It was the eve of the championship game for the 10-year-old All-Stars. Bethlehem vs. Colonie. I remember it clearly. My son, Gavin, got the nod as starting pitcher that day (I was coach, not manager, and did not make that decision), mostly by virtue of his being rested and available. He wasn’t our best arm, but on that day he was cool and in control. Gavin hit his pitch count limit after five innings and we had to pull him. Our team was ahead against a very resilient group from Colonie, leading 8-5. Time to go to the bullpen. At that moment, everything that could have possibly gone wrong, went wrong. Three outs from an elusive championship, those poor boys got smoked. It still makes me shake my head in grim wonder. We ended up losing by 10 runs, after one of the most brutal innings I’ve ever witnessed. I’ll never forget that game. I wanted to win, and I genuinely wanted for those boys to experience that championship feeling. Alas, and oh well.

It often amazes me how these games can linger in memory. When I wrote Six Innings, back in 2008, I was struck by how clearly I remembered Little League games that I had played back in the early 70s when I was 9-10-11 years old. It gave me the conviction to write the book in the first place. The games meant something to these kids. That I can vividly recall individual plays across 40 years is a testament to that fact. I can still see that ball rolling through Don Cognato’s spindly legs.

This is a place in life where these boys live. Where a lot of life’s momentous events are played out. It’s a cliche to say that a player leaves his heart out on the field, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I know I left my heart on a lot of ballfields across the years, and I wasn’t the only one.

There’s a moment in Six Innings when I try to capture that feeling. Well, not a moment, exactly; I try to achieve it throughout the entire book. But there’s one particular moment when I suppose I try to elevate the language a bit, try to lift off above the turf. The staccato rhythms give way to longer, more poetic sentences. It happens after a thrilling play at the plate in the top of the 5th:

In that instant, everything freezes, a DVD on pause, then explodes into action. Both teams, the fans, the coaches — shouting, cheering, hooting, protesting — every emotion galvanized at once, a kinetic charge of energy rising up through the five layers of the earth’s atmosphere, their cries and dreams climbing from troposphere to exosphere, soaring into the velvet void of deepest space. A roar that happens on Little League fields every day, in every town, city, state, and country all over the world, from Logansport to Osaka, San Cristobal to Little Rock. The sound the game makes when it is played passionately, with young hearts.

Hey, how’s this for cool? The cover of the Korean translation (uh, it’s the one on the left):

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