Fear is an interesting thing. The mind creates a ficticious scenario of events that could be painful or disasterous and then a person waits for the bad things to happen.
We attended a Wisconsin Timber Rattler baseball game last week. They are always eventful because T-Shirts are thrown into the crowd, hot dogs are shot high into the stands and colorful "go-carts" race around the field.
We had tickets on the third base side about 12 rows up in the stands. We were lined up with the third base bag.
The game started and it became ovious that a lot of foul balls came back into the stands, bounced off the roof and were caught by fans. They were welcome souvenirs
It was also obvious that some "foul tips" were rocketed into the stands on very low trajectory. Where we were sitting, there was barely a chance to duck if the ball came our way. I was sitting next to Collin and he expressed some concern about ducking fast enough. Of course, I reassured him that there was little chance of getting hit. Guess what? Around the third inning, a left handed batter fouled a line drive in our direction. Screams went out! Everybody's hands went up in self protection. It was like watching a bullet in slow motion approaching you between the eyes. Alas, the ball missed us but it struck a woman about 3-4 rows down in front. At first it looked like it hit her in the head but it turned out it bounced off the front of her shoulder. My guess is that she woke up the next morning with one black and blue sore shoulder.
The reality of getting hit by a foul ball now was real and we anticipated the worst for the rest of the game. No more came our way. To top it off, a batter let a bat slip from his hands in the seventh inning and it bounced off the fence in front of us. He picked up the bat, dusted the handle and proceeded to let it slip again into the 3rd base dug out (right in front of us). If getting hit by the foul ball wasn't enough, bats were now flying around.
Obviously the chances of getting hit by a wayward ball or bat are remote. Having witnessed a few near misses does heighten awareness. A ball hit in our direction did get our adrenalin flowing.
Fear makes us all cautious. There are ways to deal with it. The rewards are usually very great!
The lesson Grasshoppers is that if a bad ball comes your way, be on the look out and duck!
Love,
Dad