Personal Narrative Essay: Baseball

Baseball The summer that I was seven, I spent most of my time playing backyard games with my brother and our neighbors. They were all at least three years older than me and I was the only girl, but I had lots of fun, and in my second grade mind it made me feel cool since they were big fifth-graders. Our favorite game to play was baseball since my brother had gotten a set of bases and a plastic bat and a whiffle ball for Christmas. We would set the bases up in my neighbor’s front lawn and if the ball made it all the way to my house’s driveway, it was a homerun. Sometimes even all the dads would come and join the game. Except all good things have to come to an end, right? “Come on Matt! You got this!” screamed my brother at our nextdoor neighbor Matt Mercer. The bases
were loaded and the game was the dads versus the boys and me. If we won, the dads would have to take us all out to our favorite ice cream place, Kone King, so this was a very important game. My dad was on first base when Matt hit the ball and he could’ve easily caught the ball, but with his terrible acting skills, my dad dropped the ball.
He picked it up and went to stomp on the base and Matt slid into the base, right into my dad’s left leg. The crack of my dad’s bone was so loud, it felt like the whole neighborhood heard it. He fell to his back, contacted into a fetal position, and pulled his knee to his belly. He whinnced in pain and tears began to stream down my dad’s face. “Anna go get your mom,” shouted Matt. I froze. I had known Matt my whole life, but I was suddenly afraid of him. He had hurt my dad, who was like Superman. This was the first time I had ever seen tears in my dad’s eyes. My dad was like a rock. Once he had cut off the top part of his middle finger while cutting vegetables, and he didn’t even flinch.
I did end up going to get my mom and she rushed my dad to the ER. His tibia had sustained a spiral fracture and his ankle snapped completely in half which was probably the reason for the loud cracking sound. After being on crutches for 7 months, my dad began to walk again.
I stopped spending all my time with my brother and the boys in my neighborhood and
made friends with girls in my grade who lived a street over. Looking back, I’m glad I had the traumatizing experience of watching my dad break his leg because I have been best friends with these girls ever since. For about six months, whenever Matt came over I would hide behind the couch but once my dad got off his crutches I was able to face my fears of him. Except still, at fifteen years old, I hate baseball.