Finally: the softball episode
Softball & varicose veins edition
A few people have been wondering what the hell are these varicose veins of which I speak. Let’s begin with some memories… I was 8 years old when I noticed an area of my right leg began to feel soft where my calf muscle should be. As the next four years ensued, the soft tissue area grew to look like I was turning into a plant/animal hybrid as a bunch of grapes began to poke through my calf. My brother likened it more to a snake slithering up or down my right leg. I began 8th grade (one of the worst years of my life) having to wear a white stocking on my leg. It did wonders for my social life. By the time I transferred to El Camino my sophomore year, I had to get custom made flesh toned stockings. I learned the important skills of having to stop runs in a stocking and shaving my legs (by that was also for tape jobs when I played football), although the hair on the left leg grows, whereas the right one doesn’t. I had surgery the summer before my senior but I still had to wear special pads to protect my leg, so try to imagine the ribbing a football player gets in a locker room when he had to slip on his stocking.
For those of you more scientifically-minded… the diagram to the left here explains why my leg looks so gross/sexy. The stocking compresses the veins so that the blood doesn’t pool back so much.
So why am I discussing this again….
Sometime in mid-July, our softball team, the Lil’ Giants, played in a semi-final playoff game. During 4 of the past 5 seasons we have finished 2nd--which sucks, especially because the last time my brother was horribly scarred and a teammate's father passed away during the game (the friend was with his family and not playing, some things are more important than softball... 138! 138!). We began the game determined not to lose again. Yet, the curse of the Padilla brothers befell me this time.
The plan going into the game was for me to be the starting pitcher for the first 4 innings and rotate Lance in to be the closer, since our styles contrast greatly it tends to confuse the hitters. Pitching is something that most teams appear to not concentrate on. Lance is talented with his variety of pitchers. I am getting better... enough to have started most of this season (Lance, of course, was playing with a bad shoulder suffered from the championship games months earlier).
I walk the leadoff man... which sucks. The second batter popped out. I had the third batter or he had me at a 3-1. He took the next pitch on the inside corner and was shocked and he glared back and I smiled wickedly. Next pitch, he lines hard right into my varicose veins. The ball deflects to 3rd base, which I try to run after, but my leg swells twice the size immediately and I collapse to the ground. I lay there for a couple of minutes and I am helped off the field. Lance asks me if I was hit where he thinks he saw it and I painfully shake my head and hiss out a YES!
For the rest of the game I'm laying on the bleachers with my leg elevated. Fortunately the wonderful fans of our softball team took care of me by getting me ice, checking the injury, allowing me to lean on them, etc. The sight was rather bleak and everyone considered sending me to the emergency but me, but I can't leave my team during a playoff game, which we fortunately won... Lance picked me up by pitching like he usually does and holding the other team down, but it was a close hard fought game.
But I didn't watch it, I heard the game and I had to deal with this...
This had happened previously to me when i was 16 and I was playing a pick up football game in a park and that time I did have to go to the hospital. And this did lead to me having surgery a year later.
Now keep in mind the sight you see was unknown to my teammates, because they needed to focus on the championship game and they didn't need to worry about me. However, Lance strained his back in the second inning of the game and he left the dugout to ask me if I was well enough to go back into the game and that's when he saw the leg and realized I would be useless to him. He sucked it up but did give up 11 runs. He wasn't able to finish off his pitches like he usually did because his back was killing him.
But my team wasn't going to go down without a fight... (a couple seasons earlier we lost a championship after having a 10 run lead with 2 innings to go---some of you might remember it from earlier blogs regarding softball redemption)
We put a rally together and came back to win 18-13 in the final 3 innings. It was a wonderful moment to see out of the corner of my eye the team come together near second base and celebrate the long sought reward after 6 years of softball in the south city then daly city league. Oddly, we won the D-8 championship after always falling short in D-9, which is supposedly an easier league.
Here's the first team pic, I was able to get there briefly...
here's the next pic with the 11th man in the stands along with mascots...i was in too much pain to stand for this picture... it sucked to not really be part of the celebrating, but i knew i helped all i could to get our team there...
and if you check out our season stats... you'll see Lance and I gave up less runs by far than any other team... unfortunately they don't keep pitching stats and the batting stats are way off... i actually batted .400 (not according to the scorekeepers, though) http://www.bayareastats.com/aDaly/damd8leg.htm
if you click on our team Lil Giants, you'll see the individual stats of those on the team...
here is the trophy and the game ball signed by everyone... we celebrated afterwards at Friday's... and I was stupid enough to go, but I wanted to feel like part of the team so to hell with some extra pain...
you'll notice on the list of top friends on myspace.com/psychoverse that the first couple people are affiliated with the team...
here's the leg two weeks later... the actual spot on the leg where i was hit didn't turn purple into 3 weeks in...
i finally went to the doctor and the swelling is no longer as severe but I do have a pocket of blood that apparently likes to live where it is and it may need to be drained...
it's been a month and the leg is almost normal... i hope to return to our new softball season on Aug. 20 after our bye on the 13th...
daly city bumped us up another division and we've lost our first three games this season but we still plan to take it all again...
unfortunately, chris paras tore his achilles' tendon in game 1
more sad news... the new school year starts in 15 days for me...
next episode: the ASB reunion/networking bash that was held just last Saturday...
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