They chronicled 850 baseball deaths in Death at the Ballpark, spanning professional, amateur, Little League, and even backyard pickup games. And though the book purports to be comprehensive, readers have already tipped them off to about 50 incidents they missed.
[...]
It's weirdly moving, if not exactly consoling, to learn just how many of baseball's casualties made the play before expiring. There's the amateur shortstop who, in 1902, caught a bad hop in the throat and used his last moments to throw out the runner at first. The third baseman in an Indiana league who, in 1909, tagged out the runner plowing headfirst into his gut, then succumbed to the resulting internal injuries three days later. There's just something about baseball that inspires a kind of heroic resolve. John McSherry, the major league umpire who collapsed at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium in 1996, had actually postponed treatment for the heart condition that felled him so he could call the game. It was Opening Day.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Death At the Ballpark
No one is safe, anywhere. (Although one probably is safer in the cheaper seats.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
The story you link to is heartbreaking as I read about it the other day. I really feel bad for the outfielder as he must feel some sort of guilt..even though he shouldn't.
It is astounding how many folks will dive to their deaths to catch a friggin baseball or football.
Ok, yer friggin Dodgers are really pissin' me off this weekend.
Yesterdays game really chapped my ass, poor damn Padres should have a firm grip on last place after the series winds down today.
Recreation Editor:
Hee hee. We hope you appreciate our not rubbing it in. Don't be so sure their grip on the cellar is that firm, however. The Dodgers could threaten at any moment.
The BallnChain™ has been rubbing it in relentlessly.
I just make him sleep in the livingroom..fucker.
Post a Comment