That’s kind of a funny story. Some people just stand there and get hit. Some people think it’s a manly sort of thing and saying, “Okay, it’s not going to hurt me. I’ll take the hit by pitch, and go to first base.” I was never of that opinion. I would rather get out of the way of the ball and I was pretty good at getting out of the way. I stood off the plate a little bit.
It’s kind of funny, my son when he first started playing baseball as a — I don’t know — eight year old, you know, there was a period he got hit and he was kind of scared of the ball. And I was trying to say, you know, it’s part of the game. Yyou can’t hit by being scared or thinking you’re going to get hit. You have to have the confidence that you can get out of the way. And so I took a tennis ball, or a squishy ball in there, and I gave him some techniques, and I started to throw the ball inside, and then I said, “Look, I’m going to try hit you with this softball now, you know, see if I can.” So we invented a game called, sort of, dodge ball, a little bit, and he became pretty good at getting out of the way.
And I said, “Is there anybody on your team that gets hit all the time?” And I said… He goes, “Yeah, this catcher gets hit all the time.” And I go, “Why do you think it is?” And he says, “Because he just stands, he doesn’t get out of the way.” I said, “Right. You don’t have to worry about it because you can get out of the way of the ball.” And so that’s, that’s how I thought. So I got hit enough times. I get hit in the head, I think, seven times. I counted it up one time, and every single time I got hit in the head I was looking for a breaking ball, which you have to wait, and convince yourself that it’s going to break,