Note to ballplayers and other humans: Stay on your feet at all cost...

The Superman...

...and the no-hander-lander

Scraped my elbow raw running to first base Tuesday night. More painful than my raspberry elbow is the admission I tripped over my own bat, laid down too politely on the fine rocks that constitute infield dirt these days.

I wonder what my Superman No-Hander-Lander looked like. My mind’s eye saw something graceful, something I might have done at 15 to spear a grounder in the 3-4 hole. But the looks on the faces of fellow ballplayers, the way everything stopped for a moment as they offered hands to help me up from the dust, the worried admonition of the hardboiled umpire to please throw the damned bat farther away next time, tell me this fall was more scary than graceful.

And, today, unlike the bleeding badge of honor I brought home to my wife Tuesday night, my elbow hurts ignominiously like I stupidly burned it on the stove. The lesson? Stay on your feet at all cost in this life. Gravity is your enemy.

--Lofflin, and you're welcome...

PS: Only a baseball announcer could say 'He's raised his average from .170 to .191' with such unabashed glee. But, of course, that's how the new Royal's announcer introduced Eric Hosmer, The Hos, tonight on the broadcast. Here's my take  from the week when The Hos reached .170.

Superman image courtesy www.studentsof theworld.info; no-hander-lander image courtesy: The 2010 Project