I’ve been a Boston Red Sox fan since I was a mere babe. There’s actually a family photo of me in myBoston Red Sox “one-sie” taken circa 1956 around the time I was 1.
I’ve listened to a million hours worth of ball games on the radio and though blind, I’ve followed an equal number of hours watching games on TV. And never in my roughly 48 years of baseball consciousness have I seen someone steal home. And so the sight of Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury diving over the plate last night against the New York Yankees was extrasweet.
Mr. Ellsbury is the fastest man in baseball and he has a very good eye.
Check it out: http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=bos
Of course as a blind person who navigates in traffic with my cane or my dog I like to think about plunging headlong into the unknown. I love all such stories whether they’re about sailing or leaping over the parapets. I like what Mr. Ellsbury had to say about how he spotted the Yankees’ pitcher Andy Pettit looking inattentive and then deciding to go:
“Once he rocks back into his windup, he has to go home with it,” Ellsbury said. “From that point, it’s a footrace.”
“The biggest thing is getting the courage to go, I guess. … In a situation like that, you’ve got to make it. It could be one of the worst baserunning mistakes. When I saw Andy go in his windup the previous pitch, I thought, ‘I can make it.’
“It’s just a matter of going at that point. It’s bases loaded and a 2-1 ballgame. The last thing you want to do is get thrown out at the plate.”
I know just what he means.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 