The Stem

When I was ten and my brother was eight we made up a grounder game for two we could play whenever we couldn't get enough kids together to get a baseball game going. In our game, we would take turns throwing grounders at each other on the two lane street in front of our house. The object, of course, was to make each other miss if we could. The grounder had to be on the pavement to count, so you would have a decent chance to get in front of it, or at least reach it. One of the main incentives for fielding it was you would have to chase it down the street if you missed it.

We got to be pretty good infielders, even on those tricky second hops that had extra topspin from the pavement. All through Little League and Babe Ruth League I was always chosen to play shortstop, the position usually reserved for the best infielder.

In the spring of 1966, as a freshman at Lakeshore High School, I was on the Junior Varsity baseball team. We practiced at the same time as the Varsity team. In March it was not unusual for our practices to be combined and held in the gym due to the cold weather. There was no batting practice but there were other drills we could do.

One was a fielding drill in which we all lined up on one end of the basketball court while a coach hit grounders at us. After we fielded them we would throw over to an assistant coach positioned as if on first base, not too different from the grounder game my brother and I had played.

One day the Varsity coach turned that drill into a contest. Whoever booted a grounder would be out and would have to sit off to the side and watch the rest continue. The object was to see who was the best infielder.

Those tricky second hops from the gym floor ate up several guys as they dropped out with an error right away, and every round saw some drop out. I was used to those hops, though, and knew how to adjust for them.

After a while there were only two left, a senior, who was the Varsity starting third baseman, and me. My teammates rooted for me while his teammates pulled for him. I could tell there was a lot of pressure on him to not lose to a freshman. I was not really expected to win.

The grounders continued, first a hot shot at the senior, then one at me. Neither of us booted any of them. Practice was now running over, so in an effort to finish this challenge and get us out of there, the Varsity coach really started to smash harder and harder shots at us. Some were tough, short one-hoppers. Amid "Oohs" and "Aahs" and cheers of encouragement from our teammates we continued to shift quickly and easily from side to side as we snagged backhand drives and snared other shots that were almost out of reach. Neither of us even came close to making an error. It looked like we could go all night.

Finally, the Varsity coach gave up and declared a draw. The senior saved face but my status soared. I became a sort of hero to my teammates, and word quickly spread throughout the school.

Three years later, in the spring of 1969, it was baseball season again, this time for me as a senior, my third year on the Varsity team. As a sophomore and junior I didn't get to play shortstop. That honor went to seniors. Now it was my turn. I was confident of that.

A couple of months earlier, a classmate named Craig had smugly suggested to me that I might as well not even try out for the team since, according to him, he was going to be the starting shortstop. With cool and detached disinterest I simply replied, "Fine, give it your best shot, I could use the competition." I was not about to be intimidated.

All through high school I was never good enough to make any team except the baseball team. A couple of years in a row, when I got cut on the final day of basketball tryouts, the coach had told me that if he had one more uniform I'd get it. Then, my junior year, a buddy told me that the coach had told him the same thing, so the next year I didn't even bother to try out. No one missed me.

But baseball was my game. I wasn't much of a hitter but I sure could field. And this was my time to shine. I easily beat out two other guys for starting shortstop. As our first game approached I finally noticed that Craig hadn't even bothered to try out. I guess he realized if I was on the team he could never be more than a benchwarmer, although he could have tried out for a different position.

The Saturday before our first game was unusually warm as I helped my mom clean out and prepare her little garden in the back yard. I wore cut-offs while I pulled old, hard stalks and stems, remainders from the year before, so we could turn over the soil and plant new flowers and vegetables.

As I yanked on one handful I slipped and fell, and a piece of an old stem punctured my right shin. I dug out as much of it as I could but couldn't be sure I had gotten it all. It barely bled so I didn't give it much attention.

The next day almost the entire length of my right leg started to swell. The skin got pretty tight and hurt like the dickens, but I could still bend my knee enough to walk without anyone noticing I had a problem, so I kept it to myself. I was afraid I'd be benched with this injury, and I was not about to let my final high school baseball season pass by without me!

I uncharacteristically began the season with a five-game hitting streak that even included a home run, my only one in high school, windblown as it was. A couple of weeks later the swelling in my leg went down, no infection ever set in, and I forgot all about it.

We beat our arch rival, St. Joe, for the first time ever (we actually beat them twice!) and finished the season as Conference Champions, also for the first time in Lakeshore's history. And I got my third Varsity Letter. A successful season all around, and a fitting end to my high school baseball career.

Three years later, in the summer of 1972, Carol and I had just gotten married. One day she noticed a bump, between my left shoulder blade and my spine, that hadn't been there before. It had the shape and feel of a big splinter, she thought, although I couldn't feel a thing.

I thought it was probably nothing, but Carol was adamant. Using an ice cube to numb it, she got a razor blade and a needle and picked at one end, and then with tweezers pulled out a blackened plant stem about an eighth of an inch in diameter and about half an inch long. It was only inches from my heart! With a look of both shock and disgust she showed it to me. "What's this?" she demanded.

Was it a piece of the stem I had missed three years earlier? Had it traveled all the way from my right shin to my back? I could not think of anything else it could possibly have been.