My Nose Is Bigger Today. It's Worth It.

It was a Monday morning softball game. My friend who owns a club where I sometimes do comedy organized it for other comics, writers, actors, food service people who work evenings. It’s a nice thing to look forward to on a Monday. Dulls some of the edge of the new week anxiety.

So, there I was, playing shortstop, trying to prevent a routine grounder from getting through. On the balls of my feet, my butt down, my head down, my hands out, and WHAM! A wild hop and I blog this afternoon with a nose three times its normal size. It’s the 3rd time I broke this appendage and the 2nd baseball related time. Needless to say, there was a lot of blood.

I feel stupid and embarrassed. Not because of the bad hop, but more because I’m in my 40’s. What am I doing playing softball on a Monday morning anyway? Then on the bloody drive home, I thought about it. Because it’s like baseball. And I’m a ballplayer. And I miss it. I miss the summers and the playing on three different teams. I miss the ball coming to me. I miss it all.

It was the early 80’s. I played at UCLA but didn’t make the team my first 3 years. I was persistent. During the summers I played on semipro teams, rookie league teams and college summer teams. I’d have a game almost every night, a game on Saturday and doubleheaders on Sunday. I lived for it. It was my life force. Sometimes, we’d spend the whole day at the beach, body surf, lay out in the sun, go home, change into our uniforms and drive to the game, sometimes for over an hour depending on where it was. There was no such thing as “tired.” Just excitement and anticipation. Just baseball and summer. When I wasn’t playing in a game, I was at the cages or I was watching the Dodgers. In spite of his throwing woes, I idolized Steve Sax and my favorite player was Ryne Sandberg. I loved getting dirty and I wore my injuries like a badge of honor. One time we were playing a well-known semipro team – the Pasadena Redbirds out at Brookside Park. I was playing a deep second base and some lefty who had just gotten his walking papers from the Angels comes up and hits a smash right at me. I knew I was gonna have to short hop it. It took a bad hop and socked me in the eye. I was dazed for a while, but I stayed in the game and showed up to my Brentwood restaurant cashier’s job in my coat and tie that night with one hell of a shiner. Who cared? Not me. I was a ballplayer.

One time I was playing for a team we called the West LA Angels out at our home field at Clover Park in Santa Monica. I was playing short, there was a lefty at the plate, runner on first, my buddy, Howard Cott on the mound, my roommate and baseball mentor, Dave Anderson, behind the dish. The guy steals, Dave throws me a strike. I put my head down in the tag. He’s out from me to you, but he does some crazy rolling pop-up slide and his forehead hits the base of my nose as he comes up, sending me flying 5 feet in the air and accordioning my proboscis. I land on my ass in a puddle of blood, shake myself, get back up and say, “I’m okay. Let’s play.” Our second baseman, Eunice Grant walks up to me and says, “I don’t think so, Freeman. Your nose. It’s going in three different directions.” We look over at the guy who slid into me. He’s out like a light. His helmet flew off on the steal attempt and he was unconscious. Taken away in an ambulance. Never found out what happened to him. As for me, I had to have surgery as soon as the swelling went down. The doc who put my nose back together tried to impress me by numbing it with “the purest stuff you’ve ever had.” I didn’t know what he was talking about until he explained to me that it was surgical cocaine. I told him I didn’t partake. I was a ballplayer, not a coke head.

I like to refer to my summer ball as “semipro” ball. I hate when people call them “beer leagues.” First of all, I don’t recall having had one beer before or after a game. Secondly, I played with some pretty damn good ballplayers. On one team in the late 80’s, we had 7 guys who played in the minors, 2 of whom made it to the bigs. Damon Farmar, dad to the Laker’s Jordan Farmar, played for the Cubs and the A’s. Rodney Crash McCray, most famous for literally running THROUGH the fence while playing with the White Sox Triple A affiliate in Vancouver, beat the Dodgers once with a pinch hit single in extra innings while playing for the Mets. Dejon Watson was a hell of a hitter and is now the Dodgers assistant GM. I’ve played with and against Eric Davis, Daryl Strawberry, Bret Saberhagen, Chili Davis, Matt Young, Rich Amaral, Shane Mack, the list is endless. They were all much better than I, but their love for the game could not possibly have been greater than mine.

It was summertime. The Dodgers were winning. I was playing baseball every day, so I was winning. It was worth the occasional breaks and bruises. It will always be.