Growing up as the fat kid was never easy. No matter what I did nothing could change the stigma that surrounded my chunky little body. My peers wouldn’t allow me to forget my place in the Western Branch Intermediate social structure as the kid who ate Twinkies every day for lunch despite never having a Twinkie or any other Hostess brand product in my lunches—I rather fancied Goldfish and apples, actually.
In retrospect, I’ve come to appreciate a lot of the insults that my classmates tossed at me, like “if you farted it would crack open the world and you would fall in and die.” Or “you eat a ham everyday before school. An entire ham.” But sometimes the kids just weren’t feeling creative and would simply throw out a “hey, you’re fat” and call it a day. Ah, youth.
Somehow during this turbulent time in my life, I thought it may be good idea to try my hand at sports. I’ll never figure out what I was thinking. Now not only was I the Twinkie kid, but I was also the Twinkie kid who couldn’t hit a baseball to save his fat little life. Like most problems from my childhood, my utter futile attempts at athleticism were probably my parents’ fault. “Come on, Kris. It’ll give you some fresh air and it’ll be fun.” Sure. Fun. That’s exactly what it was. In all likelihood they were probably trying to con me into losing weight, sick of flashing all the empty smiles when they re-assured me that I wasn’t really made entirely out of whale blubber like my classmates insisted.
So there I was, a portly seven-year-old who had to special order his baseball helmets because his head was two sizes too big for the ones provided by the league. While most kids enjoyed their little league years knocking triples into left field, or breaking off increasingly faster and far more dangerous curveballs at the trembling nerds at bat; I remained in right field watching butterflies or throwing rocks into the air. To make matters worse, the area’s little league forced kids into trying out to play, as if they weren’t already guaranteed a spot to begin with. Every year I tried out, and every year I “made the team,” but I imagine that the coaches picked me last, right after the near-sighted kid with one arm.
Thankfully, my sporting life ended early because of two events from the same game that liberated me from the confines of those itchy polyester uniforms. This series of events began when my coach rather stupidly felt sorry for me and decided to let me pitch for one inning. Three pitches later and I was back kicking sand in right field, which I suspect probably had something to do with the sobbing, bloodied eight-year-old who was just hit in the glasses with an out of control baseball.
The next incident occurred while I at bat. I could never really get the hang of making contact with the ball, and at this point my fear of getting smashed in the face by a wild ball was doubled because of the bloodshed I caused earlier. Apparently my violent display of complete ineptitude left a visible scar of discouragement on my face. Reacting to this, Mrs. Fansler, the sporty mother of a teammate whose birthday parties I would often attend, comforted me and gave me pointers on hitting the ball. “Don’t turn your head, Kris. Always remember that. And keep your eye on the ball. Head straight. Eye on the ball. Now get out there.” I walked up to bat, took a deep breath, and readied myself for the coming pitch.
The first ball whizzed past and I clenched my eyes and swung the bat. Strike 1.
“You can do it, Kris!” Mrs. Fansler yelled from her position along the fence of the third base line. “Eye on the ball!”
I straightened myself for the next pitch but shied away when the ball came by; I wasn’t getting hit for anybody, much less so I could hit a ball into a field full of people who hated me.
The outfielders moved in out of anticipation of my weak hitting ability, and I glanced towards Mrs. Fansler once more. She reassured me with a nod and a smile. I turned towards the pitcher and narrowed my eyes. He confidently threw the ball and I whipped the bat around without even thinking. Contact. The ball flew from my bat in a direct path towards Mrs. Fansler’s face. Contact.
Mrs. Fansler lost consciousness briefly and went temporarily blind in her right eye. Needless to say, I wasn’t invited to anymore birthday parties. Now it was either the desperate screams of an injured woman begging for her sight to return, or I simply realized that I wasn’t exactly the sporty type, but that day marked the end of my career in amateur sports. Unfortunately for me, this attitude lasted until I decided to take up playing football three years later. I never had the best memory as a boy.
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