Taking a spill on the job

I once was covering a field hockey game in Pennsylvania which was contested on a pretty bumpy grass field surrounded by a cinder running track. The track was curbed to the inside and the outside. I was leaning on a 50-gallon drum that served as a trash can, which was situated outside of the running track.

In the first half of the first game of the doubleheader, an errant ball struck with great pace was bounding off the field, over the first curb, and across the track to the second curb right in front of me. The hard plastic ball struck off the curb and rebounded upward. I didn't try to perceive whether the ball was going straight up, rebounding towards the field, or headed right back at me -- I fell right backwards into the 50-gallon drum.

The coach of the team I was covering in the second game has never let me forget about that incident to this day.

 

Spring training, too many years ago, back when Lou Piniella was the Reds manager. I standing behind the right-field fence in Plant City, Fla., talking to Piniella. There was a covered batting cage behind the fence -- one of those aluminum roof edifices with no walls and nets to keep balls from flying everywhere. In the middle of the conversation I heard a loud bang, then felt a sharp pain on the top of my head and found myself sitting on my arse in the soggy grass. The Reds were hosting the New York Mets that day, and Darryl Strawberry had hit a BP home run over the fence. The ball hit the top of the batting cage roof, bounced up in the air and came down on my head.

Piniella about peed his pants laughing before he offered me a hand up.

That night, Don Gullett (the pitching coach) bought me a beer in the team hotel lounge, my "purple heart" for getting wounded on the job.

 

I once got knocked on my ass at a prep football game a few years ago by a guy as he was running out of bounds. I went one way, my notebook went another and my glasses went in a third direction. Fortunately, I managed to gather everything up and carried on without missing a play.

 

I wasn't a journalist then, but Holy Cross' Gordie Lockbaum once knocked me into a sideline kicking net. I felt like a tuna headed to its death.

I also knew a minor league baseball writer who, sitting in the press box behind home plate, took a foul ball in the teeth and filed his gamer before heading off for repairs. What a guy.

 

That is pure class. I respect the Giants for what they did for you. Did you write a story or column about it?
Great stories in this thread. I also have one that is too unbelievable and too long to reveal.

 

I was sitting on the end line of an NC State basketball game once, a pretty full soda cup on the table in front of me ... Big man Cedric Simmons goes up to block a shot, and I swear he spied out my drink cup. Next thing I know I'm ducking out of the way while his rejection heads right for us. He took out the drink cup perfectly, splattering its contents all over the dance team and fans behind me (I took a little shrapnel side-swipe) ... I felt pretty bad about that ... I think he did too ... fortunately I didn't have my laptop with me at the time ...

 

I used to work with a girl who was the courts reporter at my old shop. One day coming out of the courthouse, she fell down the steps and hurt her knee. She went to the doctor, etc. Since she got hurt on the job, it was a policy at this paper to get a drug test. Cocaine. Fired.

 

Dude, after a shift and at a friend's apartment, I once fell inm a pile of dog crap. The end.

 

Was interviewing a softball coach when the tennis team came into the huge indoor pavilion to practice ... serves.

Kid returning the serve apparently whiffed, and I got a tennis ball careening at warp speed square in the ribs.

I think the impact cracked my rib. Mfer hurt for several months.

 

I fell into that big-ass mud puddle once.

On my way to a colleague's birthday lunch, so I had to keep the faith.

Head to toe in mud, but that made the party better. Anytime someone needed to reach for a joke, they just looked at me.