How can you be so sure that a risk will pay off?

The sun was shining down on a beautiful day in July in the Bronx. I was down in New York to visit my grandpa and grandma. My brother, Michael, and I ran out to the backyard so we could play some baseball. My brother brought a baseball, and I had brought our bats and gloves. “I bet you I can hit the ball over the fence on the first pitch you throw to me,” I said challenging my brother. “We’ll see,” he answered as he smiled at me.

The yard that my grandma has is a pretty small one. It is about the size of an average room. About ¼ of it is a space for a patio and chairs so we can sit in the shade. Towards the end of the yard, there is a long fence separating my grandparent’s lawn, from my neighbor’s lawn. The fence has very pointy and rusty edges that threatens people to stay away and separates my grandma’s yard from her neighbor’s yard. “Here, you pitch first,” I told him tossing the ball into his glove. The ball had a bunch of names and signatures on it. I was pretty sure it was my brother’s game ball that he earned from playing an outstanding baseball game. He had knocked in 5 of the 6 runs that day, and got the title of player of the game. He will never forget that day. At the time, I was too focused on getting that homerun, so I was determined to crush that baseball to bits.

As my brother got into his best Mariano Rivera pitching stance, I gripped the bat tightly, and squinted my eyes, focusing on the ball as it soared towards the middle of the strike zone. The ball had a sudden curve to it, but I stayed with it as best as I could. The ball ended up hitting the sweet spot of the bat, and I gotta tell ya, as soon as I heard the sound the bat made, I knew it was gone. The ball flew like a bird across the yard with a hard BOP! on the neighbor’s porch. “Told ya!” I bragged to my brother. “Good job, now you’re gonna have to go and get it A-Rod,” he said mocking me. “No way, just forget about it” I told him. “I’ll see if Grandma has anoth-“ “No! I want you to get it! That was my game ball, didn’t you see all the signatures?” Ugggh. The last thing I wanted to do was jump over a sharp and nasty looking fence to get a baseball. “Ok, ok,” I finally answered. “If I get hurt, this is all your fault, agreed?” “Agreed,” he answered smiling.
I ran towards one of the chairs on the porch and leaned it up against the fence. I hopped up onto the chair and climb over to the other side with ease. I reached onto the porch, grabbed the ball before it slipped out of my hand, and tossed it back over to my brother, who’s eyes lit up. The tricky part started here. I didn’t have another chair on the other side of the fence, so this time I had to climb up, and swing my legs over without getting any cuts.

I grabbed the top of the fence and made sure I didn’t get cut by the rust-infected top. I propped myself onto the top with one foot on top of the fence, and one swinging down on the other side of the fence. “Almost there,” I smiled telling my brother. As soon as I tried to swing my legs over, my pants got caught on one of the spikes and prevented me from hopping over. I fell back onto the neighbor’s lawn with a huge rip in my pants and a 4 inch-long rip in my skin. I cried in my pain, “Michael! Call Mom and Dad!” Adrenaline forced me to attempt another try at the fence, and I succeeded. I ran to my parent’s and explained everything that happened, as my parents’ face widened with fear. I was never more scared in my life. Would I be alright? Would it get infected? I had seen all that rust and there had to be a big chance of it getting infected. All I knew was that there was going to be a very long day ahead of me.

Soon after the event, my dad brought me to the ER where a doctor checked my leg out and said that I would need stitches. He numbed me up and I received 7 stitches that day.

Was it worth getting the baseball for my brother? Now that I think about it, I say that I made a good choice. Now my brother can look at that ball every once in a while and think about how well of a baseball player is. Even though I got badly injured, I still hopped over that fence for my brother’s special game ball.