fifth grade--The Malinowski Baseball Incident of 1963

After reading my posts and noticing my negative happenings, a friend asked me, "Did you ever have a good year in school?" Sure, I had some good times each year but there seemed to be one thing or another every year that was dramatic for me. Fifth grade was one of those years.

I think my teacher was Mrs Fain the school's Spanish teacher. At least I had her for part of the year. She was OK. No problems there. See? It was OK so I don't remember much about it. Uncle Bill always said if nothing ever goes wrong, you'll never remember it. Well, I don't remember much about fifth grade except for the day I sent Eugene Malinowski to the hospital.

Yep. I did. We were outside at recess and on this particular day we were playing an organized game. Baseball. Everything was going along all right. I wasn't very athletic as a girl, much like I am now as a grown up. I didn't like to be in the spotlight but it was my turn to bat. I wasn't optimistic enough to think I'd hit the ball, I was just hoping I wouldn't swing so hard and miss that I'd screw myself into the ground.

I was up. Holding the bat at ready. Here comes the pitch. I closed my eyes and swung the bat. Whap! I connected. I couldn't believe it! I HIT THE BALL! Now I had to run. RUN, SUZANNE! I slung my bat backwards to give myself momentum. I forgot that poor Eugene was stooping down behind me playing catcher. I took off toward first base. About halfway there, the cheers telling me to "Run," stopped and I slowed down. As I got to first base, there there was no cheering. In fact no one was paying me any attention. Everyone was now gathered around poor Eugene. He was sitting up and our teacher was holding a bloody handkerchief over his forehead. What happened? Who'd hurt Eugene? Then someone told me that I'd clobbered the kid.

I felt awful. First, because I'd put in all that effort batting and running for nothing. Second, because I was so stupid I didn't know not to throw the bat and I'd hurt an innocent kid. They called Mrs Malinowski and maybe an ambulance. I'm not sure.

We all headed back to class and Eugene with his broken head went to the doctor for stitches. School went on as usual although the mood in our classroom was somber. None of us had much experience with accidents like this. We didn't even know if he was going to live. No one fussed at me. My classmates didn't ostracize me or get mad because I'd hurt our classmate. Later that afternoon our teacher told us Eugene was fine and only had to have a few stitches. I was very sad about the whole thing.

What I didn't know was that the principal, Miss Morris, had also called my mother. I went home as usual that afternoon never telling my mother what had happened. After a few minutes at home, she asked,

"How was school today?"

"OK."

"Did anything unusual happen?"

"No."

"The school called."

That's when the dam burst. I broke into tears and confessed to Mom that I'd almost killed a kid. Why not confess? She already knew anyway.

After a good cry, some consoling and reassurance from my mother that Eugene really was going to be all right, my mother had me call Eugene at home to apologize for the accident. Life went back to normal. He was out of school for a day or so but came back almost good as new. Neither one of us ever mentioned it again.

Maybe we had them but I don't ever remember another baseball game for the fifth graders at Longfellow Elementary. I never played baseball in school again for fear of a repeat of the Malinowski Baseball Incident of 1963.