Quote:
Originally Posted by Bump
what is it with softball and people breaking their feet and legs? I worked with several that broke their legs on some softball team they were on. I'm guessing it's unathletic people trying to slide when they don't know how to do it proper.
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I've played baseball/softball in various forms for 35 years. I've slid literally thousands of times in my life with nothing to show for it worse than a raspberry. Haven't even jammed an ankle doing it. I don't know how to do a lot of things in life, but I
know how to slide.
I think part of the issue is what it gets back to in football - be the hammer or you'll be the nail. Playing games at half-speed gets people hurt.
I blew my ankle up because I was trying to brake. I wanted to give the appearance of sliding through the bag without actually sliding through the bag. I didn't want to blast the 2b; just make 'em think I was going to. So I dragged my bottom leg a bit and just toe-picked it.
In a full speed game, I'm going through the bag and I'd have been completely fine. It was trying to play a game at half-speed - balance competitive and not - that screwed me up. Slide or don't. Be competitive or don't be. Trying to go halfway is what got me where I got.
And then yeah, sometimes its just unathletic people trying to do stuff. But I'm still a pretty athletic guy (made a diving catch in CF the half inning before).
As Buehler said - sometimes its just old people doing sports stuff. But I've found that even as I've gotten into my early 40s, I've never gotten hurt playing hard. It's dick-around pickup games where I'll sprain an ankle. It's half-assing a blue run on the slopes instead of going balls out on a black. I sprained an MCL on a light turn around 2b once - never done anything like that breaking hard to my left for a groundball though.
As we get older we get a little less balls to the walls and THAT'S when we hurt ourselves.
Be the hammer or you'll be the nail.