My wife thought it would be great to try out a golf and sports park out on Route 1. She noticed that my son would probably enjoy the batting cages. I, having no experience with batting cages whatsoever, agreed.
So we went, played some mini golf with the kids (my daughter is four and my son is six). Then we went over to the batting cages. We had only purchased one token, and I had to have the bald lady behind the counter explain to me what we got for a token. My daughter, being the only smart one in the family, didn't like the looks of the cages, and decided she would just watch. My son grabbed a helmet and bat, and strolled into the cage. The speed was labeled as "medium." It went from "slow" to "very fast," so I assumed "medium" wouldn't be too bad.
Let's keep in mind two things. 1: The word "medium" doesn't tell you very much if you have no frame of reference. 2: I'm an idiot.
My son put the token in the machine and I turned to read the instructions. I saw some buttons and a lever thing, and wanted to find out which setting was good for six year olds. The first line of the instructsions said: "Users assume all responsibilities for injuries." The second line said, "The machine will start automatically ten seconds after depositing the token."
Uh oh.
I turn to see my son standing right on the white line that shows the pitching path. I managed to call his name and take a step forward when something invisible went "THWACK" and the little fellow dropped like a sack of potatoes.
I said a word that rhymes with a type of waterfowl and ran the rest of the way. He was just standing up when I got to him and had blood coming out of his mouth. He was most upset, as he had just been hit in the face by a baseball moving at something like 75 mph. I put myself between him and any other balls without thinking, then when the second ball hit me in the ribs I vaguely thought, "Who the hell is kicking me while I'm helping my son?"
As we were leaving the cage, and my wife was asking what the problem was, we passed a dad who looked like he was about to throw up. After all, there was this huge guy getting pummeled by baseballs while escorting a bleeding six year old out.
Ok, I admit it was all my fault. I never should have let him into that cage without at least trying it first, or seeing what it looked like, or something. He had no idea what he was walking into. Neither did I, which is the point. In 39 years I've never used a batting machine. Baseball was never my thing, and when I was growing up batting machines were a little rare. But I have to wonder if maybe it all wouldn't have been avoided by putting a sign out that suggested an age limit. After all, with the strike zone set for his head, there really wasn't any way he could have hit anything, even if we knew what we were doing.
Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
