Stephen Farrell - The Night I Hit a Baseball

 

So, I was 10 in the summer of 1994 in Hiawatha, Kansas, when I stepped into the batter's box with every intention of getting on base. See, I had been playing Little League for about five years at that point. And yes, I had never hit a baseball, but I had great on base percentage. [chuckles] I don't see if you can tell, but I was born with cataracts, which means that I can't see in one eye and I really can't see in the other. So, when I first started playing baseball, it became very clear that hitting a ball was never going to be possible, but being hit by a ball was totally in the realm of possibility. [audience laughter] 

 

So, it was the bottom of the fourth when I cozied up to home plate, knowing that all I needed to do was just turn inward, get beaned and I'd be able to take my base. [audience laughter] The first pitch came, I turned, strike one. The second pitch came, I turned, strike two. Now, I wasn't going to take the strike three with my back to the ball, so I turned out. The third pitch came, I closed my eyes and I swung. There was a ping sound the moment the ball met the bat. I've never seen something with perfect vision, but I saw that ball fly through the air with 20/20 vision right over the second baseman's head and land so softly in the right field. I ran to first base, and that's all I remember. 

 

But the moment I got on base, I started writing the epic that I was going to tell my mother at the hospital, the following day. She had been battling melanoma for a number of years, but it was a case of pneumonia that had brought her into the hospital for her most recent stay. By the time, I had gotten to bed that night, my story had grown a little grander. It wasn't a ping. It was a thunderous crack. [audience laughter] 

 

I didn't actually watch the ball fly through the air, because I kept my head down. I ran right out of the gate, just like Pete Rose. I was even going to tell my mom that once I got safely on base, that I tipped my cap to the crowd in honor of her. It was a little after midnight when my father called my older sister to tell her that my mom had taken a turn for the worst, and that we should get to the hospital for her possible final moment. I remember being, at the time, concerned, but only to a certain point. 

 

See, this wasn't her first final moment. She had been battling cancer for so long that I don't remember a time when my mother wasn't sick. She had been given so many death notices that she just lived through all of them. Her cancer was this gnat that you'd swat at it with a round of chemo or another month-long hospital stay and sure it would come back. But to a stupid 10-year-old, cancer just seemed manageable. 

 

I realized that wasn't the case the moment I went into the hospital room that night. She was gasping for air, deep, heavy breaths. And her eyes were on the ceiling and they were filled with panic. We all took places around her bed. And being 10, I just followed what everyone else was doing. I rubbed her and I said, “It's okay, mom.” But I don't really know what I meant by that. Her dying wasn't okay. My forced acceptance of it wasn't okay. None of it was really okay. All I really wanted to shout was, “I hit a baseball. There can be two miracles tonight, mom.” But no. I said, “It's okay.” 

 

And then, suddenly, her breathing became normal. And her eyes went from the ceiling down to the family that surrounded her. And one by one by one, she took every single person in and she ended on me. And I stared back at my mother. The cancer had taken so much from her. It had taken her hair and sunken in her cheeks. But those eyes, those eyes were free of any cancer or any pain. And the fear was gone. And her eyes widened and she smiled. But it was with that smile that she took her last breath that they pronounced her dead. Dead wife, dead sister, dead mom. And I was still, even days after her passing, still focused on those eyes. What had she discovered that just suddenly made it so easy for her to just let go? 

 

I was actually still thinking about this about a week after her funeral when I was sitting on her front porch, and a kid from my grade named Mitch Schmidt came up to me and said, “Heard your mom died.” I nodded with my head down. “That sucks. Want to go play baseball?” And suddenly, I saw what had become so clear to my mother right before she passed. She smiled that night, because she looked out and she saw this family that she had made, and she knew that we would be okay, that I'd be okay, that I would keep playing baseball even if I never hit a damn ball again. I looked up at Mitch and said, “Sure, let's go play.” Thanks so much.