Conn-quer The Nation

Day 24: A Most Inopportune Curveball Results in a Bittersweet Win

Anyone who has never coached a game before probably anticipates the worst part of coaching is when you’re losing.  They’re right to a certain extent, but an incident like what happened in pre-game activities on Wednesday is one million times worse than any losing streak can make any coach feel.

I won’t lie; I was frustrated all day on Wednesday about what was our current losing streak and wanted to get a win against Woodbury more than anything.  Yet, it’s just so crazy that what was on my mind all day changed in a less than a split-second.  Similar to a hitter expecting a fastball, the hitter’s whole approach during the at bat changes when the pitcher throws him a curve.

I was the hitter at bat on Wednesday expecting a fastball – that fastball being for us to right the ship and get a much-needed when.  Life, in this case the pitcher, had other ideas and threw me a curve at the most inappropriate time.  Then again, when you’re the hitter, is there ever an appropriate time when you want to see a curve?

During warm-ups, a freak accident occurred in left field.  I was hitting flyballs to the outfield and Dylan was the left fielder.  On the last flyball I was to hit at Dylan, something happened, and the flyball hit Dylan straight in the face.  We don’t know what that something was that caused him to miss it.  He could have lost it in the sun or he could have looked away at the last second thinking he heard someone call for it.  Talking with Dylan after the game, we just don’t know what happened.

Granted, whatever the reason was that caused him to miss the ball, it didn’t change the fact that he got hit in the face.  I’ve seen a player get hit in the head with a flyball before, but usually they need a couple of seconds before they get up and try to shake it off.  Yet, Dylan wasn’t doing that and my heart dropped.  I hauled my ass out to help him not knowing what to expect, and still not knowing where the ball had precisely hit him.

When I got to him, I saw steady drips of blood on the grass.  He was very calm – all things considered – but he kept complaining his vision was really blurry and his eye hurt.  When he said his eye hurt, all I could think about was the Luis Salazar incident – the coach for the Atlanta Braves who suffered a significant eye injury.  When I saw Dylan’s injury and saw him looking at me with the damaged eye, expecting something like the Salazar incident and not seeing it, I know that’s why I was reassured and knew he was going to be OK.

The eye sustained a cut just under the brow and it was very swollen.  I’m no optometrist, but considering what I was preparing myself for, I knew we had dodged a bullet.  I know with eye injuries it’s important to keep the pressure in the eye down.  I needed to make sure he remained calm and didn’t elevate pressure in the eye because if he did, the bullet we just dodged would have ricocheted back and struck us.

He kept mentioning that his vision was blurry, but I assured him that was totally normal.  It was the body’s defense mechanism for dealing with this injury.  I told him I saw the eye – and I promised to him I wasn’t lying when I said this – and it’s not as bad as it feels.  Whether that reassured him or not, I really don’t know, but nevertheless, his ability to stay calm was incredible.

The thing about Dylan is he just is an amazing kid.  I’ve been lucky to coach him for going on two years now, and everything I have thrown at the kid has been handled with the utmost dignity and class.  Dylan didn’t get a lot of playing time last season because his second base position was blocked by an eighth grader, yet that never stopped him from being a leader in the dugout and in practice.  Keep in mind, he was doing all of this on a predominantly eighth grade team.

At the start of this season, he had the inside track to become the starting second baseman.  Unfortunately, Dale got injured to a point where he could only play second base, and in order for Dylan to get playing time, I needed to move him to the outfield – a position he’s never played before.

Dylan, one of my four eighth grader captains, could have chosen to sulk about this, but he didn’t.  Instead, he chose to bust his ass and be the best left fielder he could be.  In the five games he played in left field, you would have thunk he played there all his life in the way he easily adapted to the position.

Especially during this time when I have written about our team members blaming someone else for their own shortcomings, Dylan never blamed Dale for getting injured.  He never blamed me for not putting him at shortstop.  He did what the most successful people in life do: he had an opportunity – and maybe not the most ideal situation for him – and made the best of it.  In other words, he sucked it up and moved on from his second base days.  I mean, is that not awesome or what?

Other than taking him out of close games in the later innings as a defensive replacement for Owen – the best defensive outfielder on the team – the move to the outfield for Dylan was perfect.  It was an opportunity to get his bat into the lineup and he was making some of the difficult plays look easy.  It even got to the point where he even told me he kind-of liked left field!

Of course, after this whole incident, I couldn’t help but kick myself for moving him off of second base.  I also couldn’t help but think that maybe the reason he missed the ball was because I told the outfielders they needed to do a better job of catching the ball and Dylan, doing what Dylan does best, took that to heart and didn’t want to let me down.  That’s the kind of person Dylan is – as long as others are happy, he’s happy.

For lack of a better terminology, if we had the perfect mascot for what I want this team to be, it would be Dylan.  He’s a remarkable captain who leads by example.  He’s the total team player and picks up others when they are down.  He goes out of his comfort zone to make sure his teammates are happy.  Whether on the field or the bench, you can always hear him encouraging his teammates on.  And – what is Dylan to a tee – if he strikes out or misses a ball, he’s over it right then and there and moves on.

Nothing against anyone else on the team, but if they all had a little Dylan in them, perhaps we’d not have suffered an emotional letdown like we did against Jockey Hollow.  Part of what I mentioned in Wednesday’s blog was about the team looking in the mirror and realizing it’s their fault, not someone else’s.  Well you know what, Dylan is that mirror.

So yeah, anyone who says losing is the worst part of coaching, you’re right to a certain extent – until this happens.  Add in the fact that I still had to coach a game afterward when all I could think about was Dylan.  I’ll tell you one thing, no losing streak could have made me feel as bad as I did for Dylan after his injury.

If there was any bit of salvation – if you want to even call it that – we won 10-5 behind Adam’s incredible pitching performance.  As the team so eloquently put it, we won it for Dylan.  That we did, only when I talked to Dylan after the game, he only wished he could have been a physical part of the victory, not an emotional part.  And when the eye doctor told him he suffered a significant eye injury and can’t resume baseball activities for at least five days, his response was, “How come”?  Yup, is that Dylan or what?

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