The F.B.I.

You won't believe this. This latest medical problem I have isn't related to cancer. Or diabetes. Or even getting older, which is my latest "issue."

I call it the F.B.I. The Foul Ball Incident.

In July, I got hit with a foul ball, right in the chest. To be specific, right in the right breast. It took my breath away, as you can imagine. What made me mad about the whole thing was that I didn't get the foul ball. It fell into the seat in front of me (at the Oakland Coliseum, there are a lot of empty seats all around me). I was too stunned to reach for it. A 20-something guy ran by and got it, and then ran away. I felt cheated.

My right breast was black and blue -- actually, more like changing colors of blue -- for the next 45 days. Nothing was broken. I had reached up my hands to catch it, and the ball came right through them as if they weren't there and hit my body with a loud thump. Probably a good thing. Otherwise, I'd have broken fingers. Or a broken clavicle. Things could've been far worse, and that was my attitude. But I was still simmering.

But a few days ago, I got another chance. I was irritated with the guy sitting next to me, so I was about to leave my aisle seat at the A's vs. the Tigers game, crouching down to get my bag under my seat, when another foul ball came flying past me to the section next to me. It bounced and rolled over to me, and I put my hand on it. But right then a guy jumped on me. He started wrestling me for the ball.

I was still seated, mind you, and watching in disbelief as this 40-something man tried to wrest the ball out of my hand, attempting to pry my fingers loose. After several agonizing seconds, I leaned into him, into his face which was THIS far away from me, and yelled, "Let go!" He did.

I felt a strange sense of vindication as several gray-haired women high-fived me in the section.

Let's do the math. I've gone to an average of, say, 45 games a year from about 1993 to the present. Before that, I probably went to maybe 15 games a year, mostly at Dodger Stadium until I moved to Oakland in 1989. In my calculator, that comes to about 1,000 major league baseball games I've attended in my lifetime. And not ONCE did a foul ball ever come very close to me at all. So, what are the odds that a foul ball would touch me twice within three months in one summer? Astronomical? Or, in other words, as much as beating cancer?

I broke a nail in the wrestling match. 24 hours later, I discovered I had a muscle pull on my right side, no doubt caused by wrestling some grown man for a ball that I could easily have bought at the A's store for $10. And yet, I feel like that ball holds all my strength, my ambition, my will to survive. It's hard to explain, but it's a symbol. I think I'll hold onto it for awhile.