Why I Believe I Hate Baseball

As promised, I have another torturous tale about the evil that befell me courtesy of my older brother and cousin. This one involves 7 yr old me, a Louisville Slugger, and another trip to the emergency room. We've moved on to October of 1978. The parents are divorced, so we stay with our grandparents a lot, particularly on the weekends. So I'm at my Papaw and Granny's house, the same house where I impaled my foot the year before (but before we set the tree and two houses on fire), and it's a bit chilly for October in Texas. My brother and cousin decided they wanted to go outside and play some baseball. The neighborhood was full of kids, so we could always find enough people to put together any kind of game we wanted. I asked them if I could go and play too. My cousin punched me in the arm, and my brother shoved me to the floor. I guess I got my answer. As they left, they called out, "And YOU can't play so don't follow us!" Of course, my grandfather made them take me with them...I didn't even have to tattle. Now, I think I've mentioned that they were both evil bastards, didn't I? So when we get kids we need to play and head to the nearest ball field about two blocks from my grandparents' house, we are ready to get the teams picked and our game underway. I was the smallest kid there. There was another girl my age, but she was like an Amazon compared to me. My brother absolutely refused to let me play on his team, but he did convince the other team that I should play catcher on their team. The deal was struck, and so I was traded before the game began. My cousin was the pitcher for my team, and so during warm up he would throw the ball really hard at me not even concerned with the plate. Then he kept saying, "Scoot up, stupid! You can't catch the ball that far away from the batter." All went reasonably well until my brother came to bat. I was doing my, "Sa-wing, batter! Batterbatter swing!" chatter, and it evidently made my brother mad. He kept saying, "Shut up! I mean it! Just shut up!" I guess it really did get to him because very quickly my brother was down in the count with two strikes. With his ego at risk, I believe he made the conscious decision to cause a distraction just in case he didn't hit the next pitch. And he did cause a distraction, which inevitably involved injuring me in some way. When the ball came towards the plate, my brother had the bat at his waist and whipped it back, hitting me square in the upper left region of my forehead. Then he quickly swung it back forward, hitting me in the back of the head as I was falling backwards from the first swing. Finally, he whacked me again on the left side of my forehead. Needless to say, chaos ensued because I went into a full convulsion. All I remember was feeling very sick, dizzy, and like I was bouncing, but from all accounts, it was scary. So my cousin runs two blocks to get my grandfather, who jumps in his truck to come get me at the ball field. Meanwhile, most of the kids have taken off because they are afraid someone is going to get in some major trouble. My brother is kneeling over me saying, "Don't tell him I did it! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" when my grandfather showed up, checked my vitals and threw me in the truck to race to the emergency room. When we get there, I can barely see. Everything is blurry, I was doing some serious drooling, and had wet my pants, which embarrassed me at that age because I wasn't a baby and all. The next thing I remember is when I woke up in a hospital bed with my grandparents, father, brother and cousin in the room. Evidently, I had suffered a severe concussion and would have to stay the night, possibly two nights. When I came to, everyone wanted to know what happened, who hit me, whose parents to call, etc. I noticed my brother standing in the corner with my cousin, very pale and sick looking, and I thought he might even wet his pants. I secretly wished he had the little shitbag! I wanted to tell on him so badly! But I didn't rat him out..at least not then. I just said my head hurt and was sleepy. When I was released the next evening, I waited a full week before telling on my brother, which meant I had him at my mercy all week. When I finally told, I think he probably went the next week without being able to sit down. I still remember that my father said to him, "Son, are you just never going to learn? Your sister is not your personal punching bag. You cannot continue to do things that put her at risk! You're her big brother, you should be taking care of her and making sure nothing bad happens to her. I guess you'll just have to learn things the hard way." Later on, when we were older, he did look out for me. Of course, it was middle and high school, and we were much more mature. He's never really apologized for all the evil shit he did to me when we were younger though. I guess he'd like to forget it too. I don't know anyone who got as many whoopins as he did growing up. My daddy was certainly right: he did learn things the hard way.

**That goofy kid with the bowl cut on the left is my brother and the cutey on the right is lil ole me at 3 yrs old. We are 18 months apart but were always separated by two grades in school. And despite his evil ways, I love him dearly.